-The Castaway- Ficlets
by Raven Hallowryn
Summary: This is a collection of short shorts I've written for my Amorra fanfiction "The Castaway" when I need to blow off steam. Not to be taken too seriously. Mostly requested fluff prompts for now but you never know what my hands might type out in the future. BEWARE OF SPOILERS FOR THE MAIN FIC.
1. Baby Talk

"Castaway" Ficlet 1: Baby Talk 

_(for abnaxus_

_Spoiler-y but not canon (yet? Idek). 1,082k words. Senseless family fluff. The saccharine level of this one gave me a toothache. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Come on, Nilak, it's easy." Korra insisted, crouching in front of the infant that sat on the fur rug that served as a play corner. "Ma-ma. Mama. Just say MA-MA."

"Ah!" The baby with periwinkle eyes blinked at her, still repeating the little exclamation that was conjured up whenever she detected her mother's voice, even after all those months.

"Not ah. Ma-ma." The Avatar reproached softly but frustrated, waving a finger in front of the baby.

"AH!" Nilak just exclaimed louder.

"Ugh, you're as stubborn as I am, aren't you?" Korra rubbed her temples, rapidly losing any motivation to continue the struggle.

"Aaaaahhh!" The girl drawled, tilting her head in confusion.

"Ma-ma." The Avatar repeated louder, as if volume made a difference. "Ma-ma!"

"Korra, what are you doing?" Someone behind her asked.

"Ma-… Oh, just trying to get her to talk." She looked up from her crouched position and spotted Noatak looking down at her.

"That's not how you do it." He smirked, it was that typical 'I know something you don't' smirk she both loved and was utterly irritated by.

"Yeah, like you're the expert." Korra rolled her eyes and got up, smoothing the pelt at her waist back into place.

"You have to make her _want_ to talk, you have to give her a reason to do it." He explained with ease.

"She's a baby, she doesn't understand anything that complicated!" The Avatar objected, crossing her arms under her full chest.

"Nilak." Noatak called and once the baby was staring up at him he opened his arms towards her but stayed just out of reach. "Want a hug? Want daddy?"

"Uhhh!" Nilak made a frustrated sound and bounced in a silly attempt to reach him.

"No, that's not what you want." He smiled, still waiting patiently out of her reach.

"Uuuuhhhhhhh!" The baby insisted, pouting a little and stretching her arms in a futile plea to be held.

"It's not gonna work, Noatak." Korra chided, arms still crossed and a foot tapping rhythmically.

"Nilaaaaaak." Noatak called in a rumbling deep sing-song voice that he never allowed anyone but these two women to hear. "Want daddy?"

"Uhhh…Da!" The girl's brows scrunched in a similar manner to her mother's as she bounced again.

"Almost." He nodded, moving just a little closer.

"Da! Dada!" The baby called eagerly, noting that the sound drew him closer. "Dada!"

"That's my girl." Noatak finally picked her up in tight comforting embrace.

"Dada! Dada!" Nilak kept repeating excitedly in his arms.

"Yes, baby, daddy's here." He replied with pride and tenderness, nuzzling his nose to the child's sparse dark hair that smelled like jasmin.

"Why do you always have to win?" Korra sulked, shoulders hunched in annoyance.

"It's not a contest, Korra." Noatak chuckled, bouncing the little girl in his arms. "But if it was then the answer would be simple."

"Oh yeah? What answer is that, genius?" The Avatar challenged, lifting her head to look him in the eye.

"Patience." He smirked again.

"Hmph." Korra pouted in rather defensive manner, just like him to bring up the one quality she did NOT have. "Whatever."

"Nilak." He grabbed the baby's attention again and pointed at the Avatar. "Who's that? Is that mama?"

"Aaah." The girl made her usual pleasantly surprised sound.

"No, not ah." He explained, shaking his head and turning the baby to Korra by holding her under the arms. "Who's that?"

"Aaaah!" Nilak repeated more excitedly towards Korra.

"Do you want mama?" He asked, motioning as if he was going to hand the baby to the Avatar but pulling back at the last second.

"Ah! Ah!" Nilak repeated, getting frustrated when her little chubby hands didn't close onto her mother's clothes.

"Say mama and she'll hold you." Noatak offered, pointing at his doubtful-looking lover.

"Uh…" The baby looked confused by the whole situation.

"Great, now she's gone back to uh." Korra shook her head with amused exasperation.

"Nilak." Noatak captured the child's attention again to keep her from losing focus.

"Dada!" Nilak tried, looking at him and kicking in his arms.

"No." He replied firmly but gently.

"You're confusing the girl." Korra stated disapprovingly, already wanting to give up on the matter again.

"Nilak. Who's that?" Noatak made the baby face the disgruntled Avatar once more.

"Ni!" The baby squeaked in reaction to the constant repetition of her own name. "Ni! Ni!"

"No, you're Ni, silly. That's mama." He chuckled, nuzzling her neck before motioning towards the Avatar again.

"Ma?" The kid was confused but as soon as the syllable slipped out both parents where nodded and smiled, that sparked her interest.

"Yes! Mama." Noatak encouraged with exaggerated excitement meant to convey approval before he pushed he baby closer to Korra. "Do you want mama?"

"Ma! Mama!" Nilak called keenly, stretching all her plump tiny limbs towards the woman.

"And there you go." Noatak stated victoriously, plopping the child in Korra's arms.

"Mama! Mama! Mama!" Nilak repeated fervently, snuggling to her mother's bosom.

"Yes, I'm mama. And you're Nini, aren't you, baby?" All traces of bad mood gone, the Avatar lifted the baby in the air above her and rubbed their noses together. "Who's my pretty Nini? Huh? Who's the prettiest?"

"Nini! Mama!" The baby repeated the easy words nonsensically, mostly just because seemed to make her mother happy and amorous.

"Yes, we are and don't you forget it, baby." Korra chuckled, hugging the baby again and acting as if the words were a reply to her question.

"Happy now?" Noatak was still smirking but watching the scene with fondness, wanting to carve it into his memory. He knew repeated condensed syllables shouldn't really count as first words but he was proud anyway and was always glad for an excuse to brag about his daughter's intelligence.

"She'll probably forget it all before lunch but yeah, I'm happy." Korra laughed a little, rumpling the child's soft wispy hair and getting on tiptoes to plant a kiss on his lips. "Thank you, Noatak."

"You're welcome, my love." He kissed her back lovingly until there was a tug on the collar of his coat.

"Dada!" The baby repeated, looking at him expectantly from her mother's arms. Hm, well, maybe repeated syllables could count as nouns after all.

"Alright, here's one for you too, little one." He leaned down to kiss Nilak's tiny nose which she wrinkled reflexively before giggling.

"Ah!" The girl said, reverting to the start and inciting Korra to face-palm and, by extension, brought on Noatak's laughter.


	2. Water Fight

"Castaway" Ficlet 2: Water Fight

_(for the-sass-brit_

_More sugary tooth-decay-inducing family fluff. 1,240k words.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Puuuuu…" The two-year old blew the soapy bubbles away from her, her curling shoulder-length hair sticking wetly to her dark skin and dripping with warm water that also dewed on her long lashes like tiny jewels.

"Nilak, hair time." Korra announced, holding up a bottle of white jasmin baby shampoo. She herself was sitting waist-deep in the tub, her cinnamon body covered in dripping soap suds and her hair loose around her in chestnut waves that reached just below her breasts.

The toddler splashed water all over the place in objection, she didn't dislike having her hair washed but that meant that bath time was almost over and while putting Nilak in a bath wasn't always easy, getting her out of the water was always a huge chore that often involved shouting, tantrums and pleas for a little bit more time.

In reaction to all the splashing Korra gave her a stern glare, the girl wilted a little under those angry eyes and finally tilted her head back to allow her mother to rub the nice smelling goo into her scalp, washing out her hair with careful hands. Once the task was done, the Avatar moved her hands with quick practiced movements and a blob of water rose from the tub and dunked of the child's head, washing away the lather without getting into the little one's face.

Nilak endured all this quietly, more so than usual, and stared at her mother as the woman repeated the same process on herself. Big lilac eyes watched in awe as the second blob of water hovered precariously and then melted and glided down the Avatar's head, washing her chestnut tresses.

"Mama, splash!" Nilak requested, motioning with her little hands towards the third blob Korra manipulated.

"No, no splash. Too much mess." The woman shook her head, she didn't feel like having to clean the whole floor again even if it was easy with bending and, most of all, she didn't want Nilak to get used to flooding the bathroom just to play.

"Splash!" The toddler insisted, slamming her hands on the surface of the water. The blob escaped the Avatar's perfect control and splashed magnificently back in the water at the same time as droplets of liquid jumped from all over the bubbly surface and hovered for a couple of seconds before crashing down hard. Nilak giggled and shook bubbles from her face.

"Oh… That happened." Korra stated, trying to stay calm but unable to hide her mingled shock and pride. They always knew Nilak was a bender from the day she was born and she had occasionally shown signs of accidental bending, yet she had never controlled so much water so willingly and that was a surprise.

"Mama! Again!" The little girl demanded. "Again! Again!"

"What again? I didn't do that, you did." Korra retorted with a tap to the child's nose. "Can you so it one more time? Can you show mama some more?"

Nilak blinked, struggling to grasp what was going on, so the Avatar showed her by raising another bobble of water in front of the child and motioning for her to pull at it without her hands. The toddler seemed to understand the concept by instinct but still took a while to feel and grasp at the magnetic energy between her own body and the liquid, Korra felt the occasional twitch of weak resistance to her bending but when the full pull came she didn't have time to deflect it because Nilak accidentally hurtled the dripping ball of water onto her face.

With hair dripping on her disgruntled face, the Avatar frowned but the girl was laughing so hard that she couldn't be angry so instead she tossed a gentle wisp of water onto the kid's face as payback. Nilak sputtered against the bitter taste of remnant soap and used her hands to splash her mother who stopped the tiny wall of liquid mid motion and pushed it back onto the toddler who tipped back into the water with the force only to surface again suddenly, sputtering again but laughing and flinging water towards the Avatar. She used her little arms to splash as much bubbly liquid as possible but unknowingly managed to control part of the attack with bending, thus making the fluid swirl in impossible ways around Korra who began to fight back with tiny waterbent spurts of liquid, neglecting to really defend herself from the harmless assault until a full-blow water war was raging in the tub.

"Hm …" Someone cleared their throat from the doorway and both girls froze in surprise and glanced at the visitor with droplets and little streamers of water still floating around them.

"Oh, hm… Hi, honey." Korra waved a little sheepishly.

"Making a mess, I see." Noatak pointed out, crossing his arms with a nod at the flooded floor before he stared at the bent liquid around her. "And it seems you still haven't learned any self-control. Isn't that unfair, Avatar Korra?"

"Don't be a party-pooper." The Avatar stuck her tongue out in jest and the water around her splattered back into the tub.

"Pahty-poopah!" Nilak repeated babyishly and smacked her little arms in the water excitedly. "Daddy, splash!" As if to highlight her words, a disproportionate splash of water burst from her little hands, spattering not only the walls and her mother but also her watching father.

Noatak glanced down at the spreading wet stains on his dark clothing and arched a brow in surprise, then turned to Korra with an expectant expression, she just shrugged and grinned. He then approached the tub, bending away the puddle on the floor, and crouched down to Nilak's level.

"Well now, it seems my baby learned something new." He smiled, it was a proud but cautious smile that got the baby riled up from the positive attention. "Want to show daddy what you can do?"

"Splash!" Nilak said again, clapping her hands happily and tugging repetitive little streamers of liquid from the bubbly surface of the water, they were wobbly and only rose a few inches before arching and quickly falling back into the tub but the baby seemed fascinated by the motion and giggled. She then stared at her father, waiting eagerly for his approval.

"Good girl, Nilak, very good girl. But no more mess, ok?" He pet her wet hair and pointed sternly at the drenched floor, the girl nuzzled into his touch and nodded happily. "Bed time now." The scarred man grabbed a towel before hoisting the child out of the tub and into his arm with a smile.

Korra pouted a little, she always had to drag the kid out of the bath kicking and screaming but all he had to do was pick her up and she snuggled to him as if his arms were the best spot in the world... Well, she couldn't really argue with that.

In the end, she sulked by letting him take and dress the child for bed while she bent the water off the floor and soaked in a refilled tub of warm bubbly liquid until she dozed off.

"You plan on staying in there all night?" Noatak's voice right next to her woke the Avatar up but she just grinned drowsily at him.

"You could always join me." Korra purred in a delightful manner.

"I could, couldn't I?" He smirked and leaned down to kiss her plump lips.


	3. Messiness

"Castaway" Ficlet 3: Messiness 

_ (for kracken29_

_Mama-daughter fluff…poor Korra. 1,963k words._

_Note: Mingan is a Native American word that means 'grey wolf'.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

She was getting nowhere with this, you'd think that after five years training and living in the vicinity of airbenders the Avatar of all people would have mastered the noble art of meditation, especially after it saved her life so often… But no, her lack of patience and inability to stay still continued to sabotage her efforts. It also didn't help that ever since her connection to the memories of her past lives had been cut she had nothing to cling to, no goal to reach with her meditation, no past personality to try to talk to for guidance, and that just made the whole thing an even bigger exercise in futility in her eyes.

Unfortunately she had hit a snag in her work, there was a Spirit whose aid she needed and it was one that refused to be found through physical means so even the portals were out of question, meaning that meditating in attempt to search that exact Spirit seemed to be the only possible solution at the moment, yet after three hours stuck in her room with no results it was getting much too frustrating.

A foul smell that was somewhat familiar started to fill her nostrils, pulling out of any semblance of meditative stance quicker than the time it took to let out a breath.

"Huh?" The Avatar blinked and looked around in confusion. The smell made her nose wrinkle and she muttered a little irritated. "What IS that?"

The scent didn't seem to come from inside the room so she got up and opened the door, peeking out into the hallway and spotted dirty dark liquid blotches along the floor from which the smell seemed to emanate. Korra couldn't quite decipher what it was but seemed like some sort of mix between stale water and dung and was utterly disgusting.

Seeing as the Avatar had had her share of unpleasant experiences with creatures and Spirits that spewed any number of foul oozes such a thing popping up in her home made her a tad anxious so she followed the trail all the way to the kitchen and what she found inside made her sigh and shake her head with a mix of vexation and relief.

"What did you do this time, Nilak?" Korra asked disapprovingly.

The four year old jumped in surprised and stared back with wide big periwinkle eyes and the tiny braids that framed her face swinging and messy with little hairs sticking out in odd directions, much like the tangled mass of wavy locks that fell to just below her shoulders behind her indigo headband. The girl's little lilac dress tunic was spattered with dark muddy stains and her brown slacks were rolled up to her knees and torn, her feet were bare and just as filthy, around her were dirty towels, damp rags and ruined table cloths and the smell of Noatak's cologne was so heavy in the air that Korra only took two seconds to spot a bottle of it emptied nearby.

"Um…" The toddler bit her lip nervously, dropped a towel and scuffed the floor polished wooden floor with her toes. "Cleaning…"

"Cleaning? Looks to me like you're making a mess." Korra gestured at all the napkins, towels and various rags all stained in the smelly ooze as well as the muddy foot and handprints on the floor and walls.

"No! Cleaning!" Nilak pouted in indignation and held up her polar dog plushy which was caked in that foul goo, the child had apparently been trying to scrub the doll clean but managed only to rub the stains in and dirty a bunch of other things in the process.

She never went anywhere without the toy to the point where it was getting worn and the colors dulled but now it looked positively unrecognizable, Korra only knew what it was because Nilak never let go of it. She actually remembered winning that toy during a solstice festival when Nilak was still in her belly and she had no idea how the airbender girls hadn't lost it during the hectic events of that night.

"Ah, I see. How did this happen?" The Avatar crouched down on her haunches to examine the plushy.

"I was playing with Naga and Mingan fell in muds." Nilak replied frantically shaking the doll.

"And you jumped in to save Mingan, huh?" Korra lips pursed as she glanced at the ruined garments. Oh well, they were just play clothes and it should give aunty Asami an excuse to buy the kid more stuff.

"Duh! I had to, mama!" The girl replied as if the mere question were silly.

"Uh uh. And what did I say about touching daddy's things?" She picked up the empty bottle of cologne; the liquid appeared to have seeped into everything, even the very walls and was just making the nasty smell stand out even more.

"But it smells nice! Mingan needed…" Nilak argued only to trail off when she saw that Korra was not amused in the least. "Sowwy…" She apologized and the Avatar had to bite her cheek not to smile because the fact that Nilak couldn't pronounce R's still struck her as adorable.

"Ah, what am going to do with you, kiddo? Mama's too busy for this." Korra sighed and shook her head. Now that she thought about it, where the heck was Jinora? She was supposed to be watching Nilak that day.

The little girl pouted and looked down, clutching the doll to her filthy tunic and fidgeting a little, it quickly became apparent that her pout and pinched brows were hiding her distress because she was flushing and tears were pooling in her unusual eyes.

"Oh, Nilak, no, don't…" Before Korra could finished the girl was full out bawling- scrunched face, tears streaming down her face, nose getting runny, wailing, shoulders trembling and hugging the dirty toy in despair. "Oh, come on!"

"I…I tied to… to fix it…!" The four year old sobbed, skipping another R and clinging harder to the toy. "Mingan is… Mingan is… Bwuah!"

"Ok, ok, calm down, calm down." The Avatar kneeled and wrapped her arms around the girl, ignoring the fact that she would have her own clothes to wash after this but who cared? Getting her daughter to stop crying was more important than a little dirt. "It's ok, mama will fix it. Don't cry, baby."

"Ma-mama…!" The kid still sobbed inconsolably, clinging to the Avatar that picked her up and carried her to the bathroom.

"I'm here, Ni, I'm here. Don't cry." Korra kissed the child's forehead lightly. "We can fix this."

"Mingan is… Is wuined…!" The girl hiccupped.

"Ruined? Now that's a very big word for such a little girl, isn't it?" Korra tried to distract Nilak as walked to the tub, rubbing the child's back for comfort. "Where did you learn it?"

"Un-kho Liu…" The tears slowed just little but the child still sobbed.

"Uncle Liu, huh? What else did he teach you?" The Avatar ended up plopping the girl into the bathtub and tugging off the child's dirty clothes gently.

"Dogging…" Nilak sniffed, slightly calmer and encouraged by her mother's interest. It also helped that the tub was filling with warm water and bubbles, two of her favorite things.

"Dogging? What's that?" Korra arched a brow, curious and already tossing Nilak's clothes into the sink to wash out the mud by hand.

"Dogging." The toddler repeated and raised her hands, still holding the plushy, and then ducked from left to right to avoid her mother's attempts to grab her, the kid was actually surprisingly graceful although clumsy and reminded Korra of Noatak but, then again, she always did.

"Oh! Dodging." The Avatar nodded when she finally understood and managed to get a hold on the child to get her to sit in the bath rather than bouncing around. "Very good, kiddo. I always said you were a little warrior."

The crying had stopped but Nilak still sniffled miserably despite the praise, looking melancholically at the filthy toy. "Mama… Mingan…"

"Hand him over, I'll fix him." Korra smiled and extended her hand but Nilak clutched it tighter and looked suspicious. "Come on, Ni. The faster you give him to me, the faster I can get him back to you."

"…Nuh-uh." Nilak pouted, refusing to let go of the toy for long enough to get it washed. She was probably afraid she'd never see it again since, in her experience, broken and ruined things went in the trash or never really got fixed back to the way they were.

"Nilak, don't be stubborn." The Avatar scolded but the child just clung tighter to the polar dog plushy.

"Mh!" Nilak made a sort of negative sound and scooted down to the other side of the bath.

"Nilak…" Korra said the name warningly and used waterbending to drag the girl back to her. "Ok, fine. I'll wash him in here with you but you have to give him to me."

The toddler was suspicious but ended up giving in, well, almost- she still clung to the toy's tail as Korra scrubbed off the stains and used waterbending and earthbending to pull out all the mud from the fibers, there was also an obvious klutzy pull on the water has Nilak struggled to mimic her mother's technique to clean the plushy. Korra then washed Nilak's hair and scrubbed all the dirt off the girl's skin.

By the time Nilak and her plushy were clean and out of the bath, the water was murky and dark but the girl was wrapped in a fluffy white towel and hugging the toy that the Avatar dried with waterbending but that still smelled, not of the foul mud but of Noatak's cologne. The new scent didn't seem to bother the child, in fact she liked it immensely and kept sniffing the fuzzy worn out fur of the polar dog doll.

"Smells like daddy." Nilak announced, holding up the toy for the Avatar to sniff while combing and braiding the girl's hair again.

Korra took a whiff mostly to be sure that all traces of dung smell were gone and ended up smiling longingly. "Yes, it does."

"When will daddy be home?" Nilak asked as the Avatar coached her into new underwear and pulled a clean simple cobalt dress on her, a task that wasn't easy when the kid refused to let go of the toy.

"Soon, baby. Soon." Korra kissed the top of Nilak's head and then pat her rear. "Go play in your room. But no mess, ok?"

"'K!" Now much more energetic and happy, Nilak ran off to her room, dragging the plushy behind her.

Korra watched her go before forcing herself to wash the muddy clothes and go change her own. She then headed to the kitchen and sighed at the mess she had to clean which was a task she abhorred, so she planned to cheat and use every waterbending and airbending trick at her disposal just to hasten the job.

The smell of cologne didn't go away from the kitchen that easily either but after everything was washed out and the unsalvageable rags were disposed of, Korra didn't mind so much anymore- it wasn't even that strong, just a faint fresh scent like the ocean and some sort of spice that always blended in so well with Noatak's natural scent. She actually leaned against the counter with her eyes closed taking in that smell she knew so intimately and making a mental note to buy another bottle of said cologne eventually.

In the end she decided to cook lunch early just to flitter around enveloped in that scent a little longer. At least Nilak's frequent disasters had their own little good sides too.


	4. Naga, The Mighty Sitter

"Castaway" Ficlet 4: Naga, The Mighty Sitter

_(for the-sass-brit_

_Family + pet fluff with a little naughtiness in the middle. 1,390k words.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Are you sure that is safe?" Noatak enquired with a doubtful expression, watching his daughter, who had just begun to crawl, climbing all over the massive polar bear dog that lay on the grass.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Korra blinked cluelessly, setting down a large blanket on the ground before flinging herself on it.

"I know you love Naga but as docile as she can be she is still an enormous polar bear dog and Nilak is a tiny baby." He pointed out, nervously looking at the baby that was pulling the beast's floppy ears and trying to bite them with the few teeth that began to appear in her mouth.

"Noatak, other than you and me Naga is probably the safest creature for Nilak to be around. Trust me, she used to protect me all the time when I was a kid." The Avatar assured, folding her arms behind her head and relaxing.

"A kid, not a baby." Noatak still didn't seem comfortable with the idea, not when he saw Nilak trying the polar bear dog's patience by pulling at its fur and poking its snout to see rows of sharp pointed teeth each bigger than the baby's fingers.

"Big difference." Korra retorted sarcastically before she smiled at him. "Just sit down and relax, Noatak. Take a day off for once."

"There's no such thing as a day off from parenting." He reproached but sat next to her anyway. "Seriously, all Naga has to do is accidentally sit on her and don't get me started on those fangs…"

"Yeah, yeah." The Avatar rolled to her side and rested her head over his knee. "Quit being such a stick in the mud."

"I'm not being a…" The scarred man stopped talking and tensed.

Nilak seemed about to fall off the big animal and he was ready to spring to the rescue to catch her but when the baby fell over Naga moved to gracefully cushion the fall with a big fluffy tail and the polar bear dog nuzzled the baby so soothe it from the little fright. Korra watched with a smile.

"See? She's fine." The Avatar poked him in the ribs. "Now relax."

"She could have hurt herself." Noatak argued at once.

"Oh boy." Korra sighed with some annoyance at his overzealous attitude and got up to retrieve the baby. "Nilak, food time."

Nilak made her habitual little 'ah' noise upon hearing her mother and reached up to be held. Korra picked her up, carried the baby to the blanket and moments later the Avatar held the child in her lap while feeding her the vegetable and fruit purée that Pema had taught them to make, personally Korra had no idea how kids could eat that goo but Nilak appeared to enjoy it and in return for feeding the baby she got to demand that Noatak feed her which he did by popping sweetened sea-prunes in her mouth and feeding her bite-sized crab cakes and tofu wraps, he also wanted to give her water but she waterbent that directly into her mouth just to tease him.

Once Nilak was done eating, they wiped her food stained face clean and set her down on the blanket where she entertained herself playing with a chewy and colorful water-filled toy. Noatak seemed content to just watch the child roll around with the thing in her mouth but Korra had other plans, she slipped onto his lap like a needy cat and began feeding him grapes and leechi nuts, not with her hands but with her own mouth- he was more than delighted to accept the treats, the edible ones as well as the kisses.

At some point Nilak fell asleep, cuddled to Noatak's side and the Avatar had the most tempting of ideas.

"Noaaatak." She sang his name softly into his ear, her warm breath puffing onto his skin.

"No, Korra." He replied at once, already able to guess what that sultry tone meant.

"Come on, old man… We're in a deserted lovely little forest… Alone… Nilak will be asleep for a while… And…" She whispered something rather lewd about lack of undergarments that nearly made the scarred man blush.

"I see." He was tempted by the offer but cautious too. "What about Nilak?"

"Naga can alert us if she wakes." Korra got up from his lap and pulled him along with her, he was still reluctant but caved quicker than he wanted so that they disappeared into the trees with Korra's giggles and the sound of rustling clothing filling the air.

Naga got up once they were out of sight, the polar bear dog plopped down on the blanket next to Nilak to keep the child warm and the baby snuggled close, she was sucking on her thumb and curled up the big animal's thick but smooth fur.

Time passed lazily in that summer afternoon and when Nilak woke up her parents were still fooling around a few yards away so the baby rolled around and sat up, rubbing her lilac eyes sleepily and making little sounds that were a demand for attention. Naga licked the child's face in reply to the sounds and Nilak was satisfied enough by the reaction to crawl all over the polar bear dog to explore the world from a different perspective.

However, Nilak was much like her mother in the sense that she grew bored easily and stumbled her way down the polar bear dog's huge body until she was on the grass, where she sat to look around and examine the lush green environment that was peppered with bright flowers here and there and filled with new scents, little sounds of the wind on the branches, buzzing insects and scuttling small animals.

The baby crawled over to some bright yellow and violet flowers about to chomp down on them but Naga pushed her back with a wet snout to the baby's torso, knowing by scent that those plants were not edible in the least. Nilak fussed a little, still wanting the flowers but gave up fast when something a million times more interesting caught her attention- an animal was shuffling in the bushes, making a rukus and coming closer.

The little girl moved closer and sat in wait until a fairly large, slobbery and angry-looking boar-q-pine popped out from the shrubbery huffing and ready to shoot its quills or ram its tusks at invaders of its territory. Naga growled and got in from of the baby snapping her jaws enough to frighten the other animal that run off with its tail between its legs.

Nilak laughed, watching the interlude between the animals amazed her and made her clap her hands and giggle despite the ferocious snarls and roars, Naga licked her face again in a show of affection. When the kid got bored again she continued to crawl away until something else caught her eye and this was the one thing that made her gawk and make excited sounds- a deep pond of swirling clear water fed by a babbling brook that traveled downhill.

Fascinated by the water, Nilak shoved her hands into it and then pulled back gasping at the coldness and laughing with delight before doing it again and again, yet when she tried to crawl in a little deeper Naga decided it was far enough and picked up the baby so she hung by her clothes from the polar bear dog's mouth until Naga deposited her safely back on the blanket.

The whole adventure repeated itself until Nilak was exhausted and yawning and Naga was sneezing from the spores of some dandelily that the baby had blown in her snout but the polar bear dog still settled down and let the baby curl to her fur again, happy to let the little creature nap, once again sucking on her thumb.

When Noatak and Korra got back from their little escapade, both flushed, grinning, sluggish and perspired Korra flopped on the blanket next to Naga, leaning against the beast as well and laughing when the polar bear dog wrinkled its nose at her scent. Noatak sat next to her too, checking up on Nilak before he relaxed and lay back with his head on the Avatar's lap.

"I told you she'd be fine." Korra smiled smugly, running her fingers through his hair.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

_(Note: I actually based this off how my grandma's very well-trained dog (a large rough collie named Lady) used to watch me when I was a baby, the description is pretty accurate (except the boar-q-pine represents anyone that tried to come near me who wasn't my parents or grandma) and we have the video tapes and family stories to prove it. xD)_


	5. Injuries And Requests

_(Small injuries and kids asking for crazy stuff. More cavity inducing marshmallow family fluff, inspired by my own foot injury this week. This one is actually one-shot sized- 3,186k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Ow, ow, ow, ow. OW!" The Avatar complained with a frown. "Don't be so rough, damn it."

"All I did was remove your boots." Noatak retorted, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he placed the woman's legs on the couch.

"Yeah, well, it hurt." Korra pouted, giving her swollen foot a grumpy glance.

"Perhaps if you were careful you wouldn't have to worry about such things." He reprimanded.

"For the last time- I was trying to break Nilak's fall!" She defended, irritated that he sounded so condescending.

"And whose fault is it she fell?" He countered.

"I only looked away for two seconds." She grumbled the reply defensively as he walked into the kitchen and back.

She really didn't think it was her fault- she had taken Nilak to play and train by the small beach nearby because the view was pretty and it was a good place to waterbend but she got distracted for a few seconds and the child had climbed a few yards up the cliff side and fallen over. If Nilak had fallen towards the water it would have been easy to cushion her fall with waterbending but she had fallen towards the sand and rather than waste time with bending forms Korra had jumped in to break the kid's fall but twisted her foot in the process.

"Well, what's done is done." The scarred man sighed, he wasn't angry, just concerned. "Unfortunately I can't heal you so we'll have to treat this sprain the old fashion way." With that he used waterbending on the soggy cloth he had just brought and froze it then plopped the stiff crunchy thing over her swelling ankle.

"Ah! That's cold!" She flinched and kicked reflexively but that just caused her to winced and groan in pain again.

"That's the point." Noatak chuckled and placed the frozen rag back in place, tying its rigid ends so it wouldn't move from her ankle.

"Mama, mama!" Nilak suddenly ran inside, tossing off her shoes and dragging her polar bear dog plushy behind her.

"Hey, kiddo… Oomph!" The Avatar grabbed the five year old that tackled her into a hug.

"Did you break your leg? Does it hurt?" As fast as she had hugged Nilak let go and twisted around to examine the Avatar's swollen foot, nudging it lightly out of curiosity.

"Ow! It does if you poke at it!" Korra grabbed the kid by the waist and pulled her back but there was no bite in her words.

"S-sorry…" Suddenly the girl was crestfallen, her periwinkle eyes downcast and watery. It didn't help that her father had yelled her about climbing the cliff earlier either, that left her in tears because daddy never raised his voice and he rarely ever lost his patience with her, that was usually mama's job.

"That's ok. Wanna know what would make me feel better?" The Avatar lifted the child's face gently by the chin to have eye contact again. "Lots of Nini kisses."

"I can do that!" Nilak's mood lifted slightly and she hugged her mother tightly again, covering the young woman's face with sloppy little kisses. She still looked a bit anxious though and eager to please.

"Awww, yes, good!" Korra chuckled between all those clumsy wet kisses. "My turn."

With her unusual strength she lifted the child as if she were a kitten and then started kissing up Nilak's stomach and sides, blowing little raspberries and taking full advantage of the ticklishness the girl had inherited from her father.

"Ah, ah, mama, s-stop!" The kid cried out between loud bouts of girlish laughter.

"What's the magic word?" Korra grinned, planting ticklish kisses on Nilak's neck.

"P-please, ahahah!" The kid couldn't stop laughing and all anxiety had left her body.

"Good girl." Korra smiled and finally showed mercy by setting girl down on her lap, she noticed that Noatak was watching them fondly from the other side of the couch and thought that he looked neglected. "Daddy carried mama all the way here, doesn't he deserves kisses too?"

"Daddyyyyy!" Nilak hopped off her mother's lap and ran to her father, tripping clumsily halfway but falling into his hands.

"Oh, now you notice me here? Mama had to point it out?" Noatak teased, making a mock face of disappointment before turning away with a fake pout. "I see, I see. That's fine."

"N-no! Daddy… Daddy, hug! H-hug!" Nilak opened her arms for him, she was immediately anxious to please all over again but now it was a much more natural emotion and not filled with sadness.

"No, no, got back to your mama." He shook his head and shooed towards the Avatar, still holding that playful pout.

"Daddy!" Nilak huffed and hugged him by force, wrapping her little arms so tightly around his neck that he gasped for breath for a second before his arms went around her to return the embrace.

"Not so tight, baby. Let daddy breathe, ok?" Noatak pretended to choke out the words just to tease her further and the girl loosened her grip and snuggled to his chest in a way quite reminiscent of her mother.

"I'm sorry I got mama hurt." The child mumbled shyly.

"That's alright now. You won't do it again, right?" Noatak enquired softly.

"Right." Nilak nodded with determination, his scolding had guaranteed she'd never repeat the feat, she felt too guilty to do so.

"Good girl." He pat her long wavy hair gently and smiled. Even Nilak knew only she and mama ever got that smile. "Want to help heal this?"

The child nodded and once he retrieved a bowl of water, Korra showed Nilak how to bend the liquid into a glowing mass around her hands as they had been training for the last few weeks. Unfortunately, although Nilak was a very talented bender already and while she grasped the theory behind the skill of healing and could hold it in her grip for a few seconds she seemed to utterly lack any aptitude for curing in itself seeing has she never really managed to make the glowing water seep into the skin and mend anything, Korra joked that she took after her father too much but all things considered Noatak never found the words funny.

"I'm sorry, mama." Nilak moped when they gave up on healing completely for the day. "I'm doing it wrong."

"No, no, it feels better!" Korra lied to cheer the child up and it worked even if her ankle was turning blotched purple and twice its original size.

"Really?" The girl smiled a little awkwardly.

"Really!" The Avatar replied.

Nilak smiled more brightly and hurried to go get the bottle of garlic oil that Noatak requested. The oil didn't smell all that good but it was brilliant for sprains and muscle pain so it was always on the living-room shelf because such an item was valuable in a house of warriors that made a living out martial and bending arts and, thankfully, they were all used to the scent by now.

Noatak sat on the couch with Korra's foot plopped on a pillow over his lap. The Avatar groaned and complained repeatedly as he massaged the pungent oil into her rapidly bruising ankle but he knew for a fact that she could take it, she was used to handling much more serious injuries on a weekly basis and was just making a fuss because she wanted more of his attention, that and maybe she was a little too accustomed to the convenience of quick water-healing .

Nilak wanted to help too, she brought Korra a cup of leechi juice, she fluffed the Avatar's pillows, she set the radio to a soothing music station and then she grabbed a whole handful of her hair ties and her mother's brush and sat over the arm of the couch to brush Korra's hair.

Noatak never admitted it but his mother was right when she said that Nilak was just like him in the sense that she was a caregiver by nature, Korra agreed, especially because Nilak was nothing like her as a kid- she had always been the fearless fight-prone tomboy and therefore quite different from a patient protective caregiver.

"Ow, careful!" The Avatar winced.

"I am, stop making such a fuss." Noatak retorted.

"Not you. Nilak snagged a knot." Korra grimaced as the girl tried to untangle said knot.

"Sorry, mama." The girl kissed the top of her mother's head and continued to brush the chestnut locks before she began to work the Avatar's long hair into slim braids. Her parents always did her hair in plaits and small typical Water Tribe braids so Nilak had asked to learn the skill of plaiting and her grandmother had taught her a few months before so now she reveled at every chance to show off her dexterity at the task.

"You are getting very good at that, darling." Noatak complimented, smiling at the child.

"Thank you." She smiled brightly, tiny white teeth gleaming though a couple were missing. "Did you braid uncle Tarrlok's hair too?"

"Ah, gran-gran has been telling you stories again, hasn't she?" He shook his head lightly but there was a nostalgic smile on his face. "Yes, I did a few times but he didn't like it very much."

"What's it like?" The kid asked innocently.

"What, baby?" Noatak looked at her inquisitively, surely she couldn't mean braiding.

"Having brothers." Nilak's head tilted the way it always did when she was desperately curious.

"Oh… It's… It can be complicated." He faltered nervously, more because he wondered why she was asking than because of the answer itself.

"How?" Nilak blinked and started a new braid on Korra's hair, the latter was also interested in the answer by the looks of it.

"Sometimes we laughed and played and shared everything with each other, sometimes we didn't want to share and fought over little things, sometimes we told each other everything and others we complained about each other prying, sometimes we teased each other and were mean and sometimes we protected each other from everyone else. It had its good sides and its bad sides." The scarred man replied in all honesty, his explanation came out a bit disjointed because when he spoke of Tarrlok emotion tend to get in the way of rationality.

"At least you were never lonely, not unless you wanted to be." Korra remarked sympathetically without thinking.

"True." He conceded.

"Can I have a brother?" Nilak asked suddenly and expectantly.

"What?!" Korra jumped and tried to twist around to look at the girl but the motion turned her ankle in the worst way so that she fell off the couch folded over and gripping her foot. "OW! Ow, ow, ow, son-of-a…!"

"Careful, watch the language." Noatak warned. "Get over here." He bent down to help her get back on the couch.

"Thanks." The Avatar hissed as she returned to her position and set her foot back in his lap.

"Mama…? I said- can I have a brother?" Nilak repeated once the commotion cooled, she looked truly hopeful.

"I heard you. Hm… Well…" Korra hesitated, she bit her lip and traded a nervous look with Noatak.

"That doesn't seem very likely, Nilak." He replied apologetically and went back to working on the Avatar's foot, using his knowledge of chi points to and a tiny twitch of bloodbending to make the blood flow more naturally and reduce the bruising.

"Why not?" Nilak pouted, unconsciously running her hands in her mother's hair and itching to keep braiding.

"Why would you want that?" Noatak enquired, wanting to understand the sudden request.

"Rohan has sibings…" The girl began.

"Siblings." Her father corrected automatically.

"Siblings. Rohan has lots of them, Biya has a brother, cousin Eska has cousin Desna, Malina has Anningan, uncle Bo has uncle Mako, you had uncle Tarrlok, uncle Tenzin has uncle Bumi and aunt Kya… Only mama didn't have brothers and she says she was lonely." Nilak rationalized simplistically, tossing her tiny hands in the air.

"Honey, that's not what I meant. I had friends, I didn't really need siblings." Korra explained truthfully, she never _needed_ siblings even if she always wanted them to ease her loneliness growing up in the White Lotus compound.

"But I want one… I have friends but I want sibings too…" The girl slipped up on the word again but this time nobody corrected her because both parents were considering how to turn her down gently.

"Nilak, that's not something easy to have." Noatak tried to reason.

"Why can't I have a brother too?" Nilak insisted, now braiding Korra's hair again mostly because she was getting angry and, like Korra, she needed to vent physical energy when she got frustrated.

"Because…" The scarred man trailed off, unsure how of how to reply without complicating things.

"Nilak, it's not because of you. Having a baby is a lot of work, mama and daddy are busy people and we can't have another baby to take care of." Korra interjected seriously.

"But I can help! I can take care of it too!" The five year old argued far too loudly.

"Oh honey, I know you can but that's not the only problem." The Avatar grimaced, she really didn't want to disappoint her daughter but this was one request that couldn't be heeded.

"When mama had you it made her very sick, it wasn't your fault and we love you very much but now that we know that can happen we can't risk mama getting sick like that again." Noatak explained as simply and as evasively as he could, if Nilak knew that she had practically killed her mother at birth it would probably be far too traumatizing to live with.

"I'll train, I'll make my healing better and make mama ok!" The child insisted, hope and stubborn resolve overflowing from her every word.

"Nilak…" Noatak sighed.

"Please, mama… Please?" Nilak turned to Korra again, begging with big sparkling eyes.

"Sweetie… I'm sorry, we can't give you that." The Avatar apologized sadly, this hurt her too and not just because she had to deny her daughter.

"Please… Pleeeeease." The girl still begged, looking from one parent to another.

"Nilak, you have so many friends. Biya and Rohan are around all the time, they are good friends so why is it so important to have a brother when you have them?" Noatak tried to reason with her but it didn't seem to be working.

"They're not like me…" Nilak snapped and then looked out tearfully and muttered. "I love 'em but they don't… Things aren't the same for them… They're not like me… A brother would be like me…"

"How?" Noatak wondered.

"He'd be mama and daddy's kid too." She replied with easy sincerity.

"I see…" He trailed off.

Noatak understood what she meant, it had to be hard to be not only the Avatar's daughter but also Amon's child, there were always enemies and haters as well as admirers and the pressure of enormous expectations, there was always whispering and judgment and the secrets in Nilak's blood that nobody but the closest family could know…

"Have you been bullied again?" Korra interrupted suddenly and tactlessly.

"Korra." Noatak admonished but she ignored his sharp tone completely.

"Well, have you?" The Avatar insisted, looking at daughter with irritated eyes.

She wasn't angry at Nilak, she just had zero patience for bullies and talking about them angered her, that was something she and Noatak had in common even if they both had their fair share of moments bullying people in the past though they never admitted it.

"No, mama." Nilak shook her head nervously and Noatak could see the lie in her eyes and feel it in her racing heartbeat.

"You sure?" He gave her the chance to come forward.

"Uh uh." The child nodded but didn't look at either of them.

"Hm… Alright." Korra replied still somewhat suspicious and Noatak decided he would let the matter go for now and figure out who had picked on his little girl later, perhaps he might find some entertainment in '_correcting'_ the bully's behavior.

"Mama, please? It doesn't have to be a boy, it can be a girl." Nilak slipped from her perch on the arm of the couch to stand next to Korra and reverted back to the original topic. One-track mind- that was something she got from both parents for sure.

"That's not the problem, Ni. Besides, we can't really control that part." The Avatar flinched, she thought they had distracted the kid from the subject and wasn't ready to go back to it.

"Please!" Nilak pleaded more pigheadedly.

"Nilak, enough." Noatak's tone wasn't harsh but final.

"But daddy…" She tried to object.

"Enough, baby." Korra cut her off.

"…" Nilak opened her mouth to talk and then closed it and moped, looking down with the last braid in her hand and starting to sniffle back tears.

"Look…" Korra began, immediately frantic to stop the oncoming waterworks. "We'll think about it, alright? Daddy and I will talk and think about this and then we'll see what the future has in store. Just don't get your hopes up, ok?"

"Korra…" Noatak said her name in warning, surely she wouldn't consider this?

"There's no harm in thinking and talking about it, is there, Noatak?" The Avatar said the words snippily- a warning of her own, telling him to shut up for now.

"I guess not." He agreed reluctantly.

"Thank you, mama!" Nilak sniffled again but smiled and hugged her mother tightly. Korra hugged back until the girl was composed and happy again.

"Ok, now, do I look pretty?" The Avatar broke away from the girl and flipped the many braids in her hair.

"Like a princess!" Nilak clapped her hands excitedly.

"Erm… Thanks…?" Korra hesitated, it wasn't on purpose but ever since her father had become Chief the word 'princess' made her uncomfortable. She simply disliked the title even if she couldn't really accept it anyway, being Avatar and therefore neutral and all.

"Like a lovely warrior princess, maybe?" Noatak rescued with a chuckle.

"That's better!" The Avatar grinned and then kissed the girl's nose. "Thank you for taking so good care of mama, sweetie."

Nilak blushed slightly but her hands clasped behind her back and she smiled brightly and bashfully.

"What about me?" Noatak complained at the sight of the kiss.

"Looks like somebody is jealous again, Ni." Korra pretended to whisper in her daughter's ear and the girl giggled.

"I'm not jealous." He objected with a phony pout again.

"Come here, old man." The Avatar grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him close for a sudden, deep and passionate lip-mashing kiss that last well into a minute before she broke it. "Better?"

"Much better." Noatak grinned, he noticed Nilak was staring at them and had sat on the floor with her plushy. "How about you?" He tapped her injured foot.

"Ow…" Korra complained quite falsely with a secretive smile as he froze the improvised compress again. "I think I need more taking care of."


	6. Confiding

"Castaway" Ficlet 6: Confiding

_(First fic in this series that is not complete pointless fluff! It's actually a father-daughter scene with early-teen-Nilak and daddy Noatak, it's sweet but serious and stuffed with typical teenage angst and some LGBT discussion. I'm sorry but I just really wanted to write this because headcanons._

_ This one is also one-shot sized- 4,666k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

She was sitting on the floor by the fire, her long dark hair spilled in vague curls down her back and was framed by loose braids hanging in arches from the sides of her face to the back of her head where amethyst beads held them in place, her posture was tense but feigning relaxation, the flames made her shadow dance and elongate across the room, painting the fur rug and walls in inky tones of black; unlike her parents her twelve year old body fell more to plump side and hid her strength rather than showcasing it in sinew, her curves were starting to show a little earlier than was norm but, then again, everything about Nilak was precocious.

"Getting a little too warm for a fire, isn't it?" Noatak commented off-hand and sat next to the girl. He then noticed that her black wolfcat, Kinapak, was snuggled between her legs and she pet it absentmindedly.

"Maybe… But I like looking at the fire. The way it dances is pretty… The way it eats everything away without worrying about anything makes me jealous." Nilak replied dreamily, it was odd to witness a waterbender saying such a thing yet nothing about the girl surprised her father anymore.

"Well, you always were one too worry too much, darling." He commented lightly.

"Like you?" She smiled but, like him, it was just a mask for gloomier emotions.

"Perhaps. You certainly don't get it from your mother." Noatak gave her a half-smirk.

"You never look worried though."

"Confidence in my ability to handle things and pride tend to hide apprehension well enough." He explained as if it were quite simply even though it was the furthest thing from it.

"I guess I'm not confident…" She mumbled a little dejectedly.

"I can't phantom why you wouldn't be, sweetheart. You are the daughter of two prideful people and you are powerful, beautiful, intelligent and unique." Noatak caressed her hair, speaking with rare warmth in his voice.

"You just think I'm all those things 'cause you're my dad." Nilak accused with an unimpressed frown.

He laughed lightly, her stubbornness and that sulk were just so nostalgic to him. "Maybe you're right, Nilak, but it's still how I honestly see you."

"…You might be the only one." She grumbled.

"Doesn't your mother count?" He raised a brow, amused by her tone but curious about this sudden wave of angst.

"I don't think so… She's always bugging me about being too quiet or dressing weirdly or reading instead of going outside or eating too much or disagreeing with her…" The girl enumerated with annoyance and a little sadness, she was normally very thick-skinned toward criticism except when it came from her parents simply because they really were two in a handful people she trusted in the whole world.

"Oh, Nilak… You're mother agrees with me, she simply worries and has a tendency to not think of other people's feelings, or just not think at all, before she talks. You know she adores you." Noatak spoke encouragingly; he was being perfectly honest and wanted only for his daughter to see that.

"I guess…" Nilak agreed reluctantly. "That still only makes two of you."

"Your brothers worship you." He pointed out with a small hint of jealousy.

"They're six years old, they'll get over that when they grow up and start to see the real me." She objected a little bitterly.

"I very much doubt that." He stated quite unconvinced before proceeding to name more people who he knew adored her. "Still, there are many others. The whole family is proud of you, the ones related by blood _and_ the ones related by heart."

"You don't have to cheer me up, father." Nilak frowned slightly and finally looked at him, her hands resting over the large sleeping creature on her lap.

"You seem to need it. Case in point- you just called me father."

"So what?" She blinked a little in confusion.

"You only try to sound that mature when you're angry or sad. Your mother does that too, I'm sure you learned it from her." Noatak smirked again, knowingly this time.

"…Why must you know me so well?" The girl sighed and her shoulders slumped while she stared at the fire again.

"Tell me what's wrong, Nilak. I just want to help you smile again." His large scarred hand began to caress down her back, slowly melting away some tension.

"It's… I don't know, it's weird, I'm weird, but I can't stop thinking about something." She looked lost, her face pinched into a sad expression that made her look very much like Korra even though their faces were so different.

"You always were one to obsess easily, sweetheart." Noatak remarked sympathetically.

"Right back at you, father." She shot at him with half-glance in his direction.

"Your mother does say you took after me too much, she's bound to be right _sometimes_." He shrugged jokingly.

His words incited a few giggles from her, teasing the Avatar had always been something she and her father were complicit in and she enjoyed it immensely although guiltily.

"Yeah, sometimes." The girl smiled vaguely at him.

"Either way, I'm here if you need someone to listen." Noatak stated, his hand resting on her slim shoulder.

"Daddy… I'll talk but please don't tell mama about this." Her smile faded into a look of conflicted anxiety.

"I wish you'd trust her with your feelings more often, she's not as unsympathetic or lacking in understanding as you think, quite the opposite actually, she's always been a bleeding heart."

"Daddy…" She spoke in warning.

"Alright, if that's what you want then I won't tell her." Noatak conceded with a slight bow of his head.

"Thank you."

"So, what is the matter?"

"…Can I ask you something?" Her hesitation was as plain as day, it was also another thing Korra always raved was exactly like Noatak and a dead giveaway of anxiety and subterfuge.

"You just did." He teased to lighten the tension but she just shot him a flat unimpressed look. "Alright, alright. You can ask me anything."

"It's a strange question."

"I'm fairly used to strange things." And he was, that came with the territory when one was with the Avatar.

"Is it weird for a boy to like other boys? Like our cousin?" Nilak enquired rather randomly.

"Why do you ask?" He was curious where the topic came from all of a sudden and why it seemed to bring her grief. Yet, Noatak didn't have to guess which cousin she meant though, there was only one person it could be, at least that she knew of.

"Just answer."

"I was wondering when we'd have this conversation ever since your mother clumsily botched the whole birds-and-butterbees talk years ago." The scarred man shook his head with a casual sigh and then decided to answer the question. "No, I wouldn't call it weird. Everybody has their own tastes and that should be respected."

"But I've always been told that boys are supposed to like girls and girls are supposed to like boys because that's what's normal and that's how people get married and make babies."

She gesticulated, creating sections with her hands to highlight her words but she never really looked at him and Noatak had to wonder what she meant by 'always having been told' such a thing since he did not recall neither himself nor Korra ever saying that, he assumed it was a general thing she had picked up from the world around her.

"Darling, love isn't all about marriage and marriage isn't all about children." He stated simply.

"Explain." Nilak demanded calmly, now looking at him quite blank-faced to hide her interest, focus and confusion, yet another of the many things she learned from him.

"Yes, marriage can be about important unions of two families, it can be about mixing bloodlines and creating offspring but children aren't even a necessity because the true beauty of marriage is about finding the one person that means more than you can express in words, it's about finding the person that completes and balances you and makes you smile with the smallest of things, a person that accepts all of you as you are even the flaws, it's about finding a partner to share your burdens and your accomplishments for the rest of your life and, most of all, it's about realizing that the other person feels all these things for you as well and that you can see beauty in everything that person does even when others don't.

That being said, marriage isn't required to create a new life either, after all I wasn't married to your mother when you were born, was I? Love, marriage and parenthood are not exclusive to each other, Nilak, not at all, they are simply associated because that is the pattern of society, a pattern that ensures some degree of stability. Do you understand?"

"Uh uh. I think so." She nodded, still attempting to remain neutral. "So… You can love someone and find them beautiful without having to follow the pattern?"

"Of course."

"But then, why do I only see normal couples on the streets? Why don't I see boys holding hands with boys and girls kissing girls?"

"Well, those preferences are not as common as the preference for the opposite sex but they are not that rare either, yet falling outside the general preference is usually not something that feels safe. People fear what is different and often don't understand something they cannot personally relate to so those who like the same gender often prefer to be more discreet as to avoid being looked at differently, not to mention that it is harder for them to find partners."

"…Makes sense but why do they hide?" Nilak wasn't entirely sure she understood but she grasped the basic idea, she was used to having people fear her or judge her because they couldn't put themselves in her shoes so she could see the same logic applied into this situation.

"Oh no, Nilak. They don't hide, not here anyway though some nations are a little more picky culturally speaking, it's just another social pattern- most people prefer not to flaunt that which is different from mainstream and in general same-sex couples just learn how to act differently with each other, they understand one another on different wavelength whereas regular couples are taught how to act in love by example so everybody can recognize the signs because everyone is used to them. But I'm sure if you look hard enough you'd see all sorts of couples and all kinds of people around you."

"All kinds of people? What do you mean?"

She still wasn't certain she was getting all the complicated parts but she thought she was and tried to drink in all the information as always. It helped that her father's voice had always enthralled her, he didn't often speak unnecessarily and he had a deep rusty baritone that was easily scary to other people but that had always managed to relax her because she had always loved it.

"Love isn't divided between those that like the opposite gender and those that like the same gender any more than the world is divided between men and women, darling." Noatak replied in an attempt to keep things simple.

"You know you have to explain that too right?" Nilak crossed her arms, waiting for the rest because such a vague cryptic answer did nothing to solve her doubts.

"Biologically speaking, humans are born either male or female but that doesn't mean they stay that way forever. Some people are male, some people are female, some people don't feel like either, some are born one way and wish to be the other, some are boys but like to act like girls, some are girls but like to act like boys, some can easily shift from one gender's mindset to the other, and so on, but they are all human, all unique in their own way and beautiful for it."

"So if there's that many different types of people… How does love really work?" She pursed her lips, now failing at staying stoic because she was confused and skeptical.

"There's love and there's attraction, the latter is a preference and a physical desire, the former is the emotion attached to it. Most people are attracted to the opposite gender, some like the same gender, some like both, some like all types of genders, there are also those that can love but not feel physical attraction at all, as well as those that only feel attracted long after they fall in love and bond, some people can even romantically love more than one person at once and some may only like one gender but find love in another simply because of one specific person."

"That sounds way too complicated." The girl shook her head and buried her hands in the soft long fur of her sleeping pet.

"Nilak, there are no rules when it comes to love. It is only a matter of discovering oneself and finding happiness in whatever form it comes." Noatak explained with wisdom gathered over the years.

Strangely enough he had never thought much about the essence of love or romance for the majority of his adult life, he had been hardened and cold from the age of fourteen and often saw romance as a futile waste of his time; for years he merely went with the flow to satisfy physical urges, seeing seduction and flirtation as a game of predator and prey only to escape and shut others away before any sexual relationship could become anything deeper. It was only after Korra barged into his life that he began to truly philosophize about any such emotions and it was thanks to her that he learned that love was not a waste of time but rather a very powerful thing, something that could tear a person apart or strengthen them to immense heights, it could also be a reason to live, no matter how delusional or idealistic that might sound.

"That makes it even harder, it's easier when there's rules and it's all just boy plus girl." Nilak argued, struggling not with the concept but with something much more private.

"Life isn't easy, sweetheart, that's what makes it beautiful. It's the complexity that keeps things interesting, it's the freedom to choose that makes things fair… No matter what society might say."

"Still, it's weird. Other than cousin Desna, I've never met anyone else that wasn't, hm, attracted to the opposite gender." She rushed through the words rather nervously.

"Yes, you have." Noatak chuckled.

"I have? Who?" She stared at his, puzzled by that little chuckle.

"I am much, much , much older than your mother. Did you think she was the only relationship I ever had?" He looked at the girl and wondered if she had indeed thought that way, he didn't think so because Nilak had always been surprisingly perceptive and realistic but children often had a way of convincing themselves that their parents were made only for each other.

"I know you probably had other girlfriends, daddy. I'm not stupid." Nilak gave yet another flat look, this one more impatient than anything else.

"Well, not all of them were girls." He finished, fully at ease with the topic.

"…Really?" She seemed skeptic but the tension in her body rapidly began to melt and she began to inch closer to him unconsciously.

"Yes. I always managed to see beauty and potential in both men and women." Noatak replied casually, more interested in her reaction than in the topic. "Oh, and your mother? She once claimed that, attraction-wise, she makes no distinction between genders even if her obvious preference leans towards men. Her first kiss was with a girl though." He added, hoping his daughter would feel more inclined open up to her mother in this situation but then he thought twice and added- "However, you shouldn't talk to her about that."

"Why not?" Nilak looked confused.

"That particular girl is the source of much heartache for your mother, don't mention the matter in front of her, please." His tone was much sharper and demanding than anything else said so far, it clearly stated this was not up for debate.

"Ok, daddy…" She trailed off, wondering what exactly was behind that story. "So…"

"Yes?" He waited for her to continue.

"So… I guess it's not creepy to you that someone you know can like the same gender?" The girl avoided his eyes, looking into the fire and speaking hesitantly.

"Nilak, if this is about you being in love with Biya then you really don't need to be so nervous. I've known you liked her for a while." Noatak commented lightly.

He suspected this was the reason for the talk right from the start but he had wanted her to open up and tell him on her own, unfortunately she just kept circling the subject and becoming more and more anxious so he decided to spare her more grief and simply admit he knew whether she became angry at him or not.

"What?!" Nilak spun to look at him so fast that the wolfcat woke up, yawned and sat to stare lazily while the girl's periwinkle eyes widened with fear and she began to ramble and stutter. "I… I don't… N-no… Biya and I are just… Just friends… Best friends… I'm not… I mean… Er… What are you even talking about?! This wasn't about me!"

"Then why are you so flustered?" He cocked a brow and watched her dark cinnamon skin blush intensely, he could also feel her heart beat a mile a minute.

"…" She opened her mouth repeatedly but the excuses never wanted to come out so at last the sighed and surrendered, the blush staining her face and ears further until she felt like her skin was burning. "Did I make it _that_ obvious?" She sounded scared and ashamed.

"Not really, half the time I don't think you realized it yourself so neither did anyone else, especially because most people still see a child in you. I just knew because I know you well, Nilak." Noatak comforted, holding her in a one-armed hug.

"It's not just Biya. I tried not liking her that way, I tried finding reasons to like boys, I even kissed a boy but it sucked! For some reason only girls feel right to me…" She trailed off, still avoiding his eyes.

"And that is perfectly normal, girls are fascinating creatures after all." He smiled but then her words really hit home and he frown ever so slightly. "Wait, you kissed a boy? What boy? Do I know him?"

"Daddy…" She glanced at him still embarrassed but muttering the title in warning.

"I'm merely curious." He defended weakly.

"It doesn't matter, he liked me and we kissed but it just felt wrong to me in so many different ways so now we're just friends." She shrugged but seemed comfortable enough in his embrace.

"So he's one of your friends?" Noatak paid more focus to that piece of info than all the rest she said.

"Dad, stop trying to guess who it was!" The girl snapped.

"Alright, I won't, I was only speculating." He raised his free hand in a gesture of surrender.

"Well, don't." She sulked, looking at the fireplace again where the flames were starting to die out from lack of fuel. "The boy doesn't matter, I hate to say it because I like him a lot as a friend but that kiss was just gross."

"Not the best first experience, was it?" Noatak grimaced sympathetically, he knew a little something about awkward first kisses.

"Who said it was the first?" She muttered almost inaudibly and pinking up further.

"It wasn't?" Now he was interested and cautious all over again.

"No… The first was girl, she was just kidding around but to me it counted." Nilak stated with a stubborn rebellious edge to her words.

"And do I know this girl?" The scarred man asked in the exact same suspicious tone of before.

"Daddy, stop trying to ferret out the people that kissed me!" She smacked his chest in menace but not hard at all.

"Well, I'm sorry but I'm just doing what fathers do."

"You're being, as mamma says, 'annoyingly overprotective'." The girl rolled her eyes and her expression was Korra's again, that in itself was enough to appease him. "They don't matter, daddy. I don't like boys that way and, as pretty as girls are, there's only one stuck in my head."

"Biya?" Noatak questioned unnecessarily, he was having a hard time not laughing though because he kept thinking of how much he'd love to see the reaction of that particular girl's mother to this whole situation. He was certain it would be priceless.

"…I liked Biya for as long as I knew what love is but she's always been crushing on someone else, she likes boys so obviously that she finds any alternative weird." And there it was- the gloom, the cloud of sadness that took over Nilak so quickly that the red in her cheeks began to sap away almost immediately and she automatically began trying to curl into herself.

"I see. This is why you've been upset? Because she unknowingly said something that made you feel inadequate?" He guessed, slowly pulling Nilak into his lap as per habit.

Korra, Nilak and even the boys always seemed to feel calmer and safer in his lap in moments of distress and this was no different, Nilak felt a bit embarrassed considering the whole topic at hand but she didn't pull away, she just rested her head on his shoulder.

"Yeah, maybe." The girl admitted softly but evasively. "Don't blame her, it's not her fault."

"I don't, she's just a kid that happened to inherit a very loud blunt mouth from both parents." He assured her, slowly running a hand through the chocolate waves of her hair. "Why don't you tell her the truth?"

"I can't. She's too immature, I wouldn't just get rejected, it would make things awkward and mess up what we have now. I like our friendship, she's my best friend, we grew up together, she's the only girl I can be myself with, the only one who knows most of my secrets and isn't freaked out by them… I don't want to lose that, I'd rather love her from afar and still be her friend than lose it all because I got greedy." Nilak explained everything a little tiredly, as if she had been thinking of this far more than someone so young should.

"You'd rather be cautious." He nodded in understanding. "I respect that. You're wise for your age but you are still little more than a child, Nilak, and as you so well stated she's even less mature than you, so perhaps it's best to let fate handle this matter." He advised serenely, knowing full well that pushing his opinion on her wouldn't work so it was best to merely show faith in her decisions, suggest the best course of action and let her think it all through herself. "It's not yet time to suffer for love, sweetheart, so don't overthink it, maybe the future will still hold some pleasant surprises."

"You think so?" Nilak looked up at him hopefully, lilac eyes glittering with unshed tears.

"I know so. And you should know that I'll stand by you no matter what you decide to do, darling." He planted a small kiss on her forehead.

"Thanks, daddy…" She smiled weakly. "Since when have you known I like her?"

"Since you were eight and we had that long trip to the North, you got all flustered and lovesick whenever you spoke with her on the phone." He grinned at the memory, he was certain even Nilak herself hadn't noticed how infatuated she was at the time.

"Has mom…?" The girl let the question hang in the air.

"No. And you probably shouldn't tell her." He advised with a little grimace.

"Yeah…" Her fragile smile faltered and her heart seemed to sink but Noatak realized that she had misunderstood and thought Korra would judge.

"I don't mean it that way, sweetheart. I'm sure her feelings for you wouldn't change but knowing your mother she'd start to meddle and play matchmaker just to try to make you happy, she would most likely think it harmless and therefore would be completely unable to keep that sort of secret." Noatak explained, he didn't think it was a good idea to involve the Avatar considering who the parents of the other girl were.

"But she wouldn't think I'm strange?" Nilak asked, hopeful again and a little doubtful.

"I cannot imagine Avatar Korra ever thinking that." He smiles supportively.

"But what if she does?"

"Another thing your mother once said long ago is that she likes '_weirdos'_, they make life interesting. Beside, have you even seen our family?" He picked up her hand and pressed it to the heavily scarred side of his face, feeling the soft skin of her palm and the slight graze of her nails on his sideburns and the hairline at his temple, both of which had recently begun to pepper slightly with grey. "We aren't exactly ordinary, are we? Look at Anni and Mali, look at your cousins, look at me and your mother and tell me how much more unusual than us anyone can get."

"But you and mom are awesome and strong, you've done amazing things…" She argued, tracing the grooves of his scars with the tips of her fingers the same way she did since she was a baby.

"Nilak, you are TWELVE. You have your whole life to do fantastic things and, for the record, you achieved more simply by being born than both your mother and I did when we were your age." Noatak stated with immense pride and a touch of melancholy- she was so young, still his baby girl, and she was already so filled with doubts and worries and growing much too fast.

"I have?" The girl looked at him, still tracing his face out of habit.

"Yes, darling. You most certainly have." He nodded and smiled again. Even though the story wasn't really happy one, it was still something to be proud of. "Someday I'll tell you all about it but for now I think it's time we put a smile on your face and go pick your mama before she gets bored and therefore in trouble."

Nilak chuckled and agreed, Korra was supposed to be at a rather tedious meeting with the current president of the United Republic and a bunch of foreign ambassadors about some treaty and if they didn't pick her up on time she would end up stuck with the politicians and probably set something on fire out of pure frustration.

"You're right…Thank you. For everything, I don't know what I'd do without you, daddy." Nilak smiled more truthfully this time.

"A hug is all the thanks this old man needs every once in a while." Noatak smiled back because Nilak's joy was infectious.

She hugged him at once, her face nuzzled to his neck and his to her hair, their arms wrapped tightly around each other and both of them sensing each other's heartbeats, a sensation that through the years had become equivalent to comfort and peace.

"I love you, daddy." She murmured gratefully and finally at ease. "You're the only one that always understands."

"I love you too, Nilak. More than you'll ever know." He replied sincerely, enjoying the little moment that became more and more rare as the girl grew up. It seemed like only yesterday she was a baby sleeping in his arms or a toddler crawling over him for attention and now here she was having her first crushes and heartbreaks…


	7. Makeup

"Castaway" Ficlet 7: Makeup

_(For Polyx because she's amazing and she deserves recognition and her art is deeply inspiring. Prompt suggested by valkerys-sister._

_Girly shenanigans and Noatak's not-so-secret cosmetic talents. 3,090k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~

"Look down. Stay still." He murmurs softly with the brush in his hand as he bends over Korra. "Don't blink."

A person watches from the behind the cracked open door- it takes a few short but precise strikes of the brush and when he's done Korra looks like a whole other person with smoky colored eyes and black winged eyeliner making her eyes even more chatoyant than usual.

She never liked makeup, the only girly habit she ever found amusing was nail-painting and even when Asami gave her a whole colorful kit of makeup she never got the hang of it and usually forgot all about the stuff until some official event or party or formal meeting popped up and when it did she always ended up asking Noatak for help because after years using cosmetics to disguise himself he was a hundred times better at the task than she could ever be.

"Open." He orders softly and the twenty-three year old Avatar knows the command well enough by now so she parts her lips ever so slightly and watches him take another brush, dip it in creamy bright pigment and then paint it onto her lips skilfully before blotting it with tissue and applying a subtle second coat. "All done."

She looks in the mirror and there are those few seconds when the image that reflects back is almost too jarring to recognize, those few moments in which she just stares in surprise and examines that skin that looks like dark cashmere, sultry eyes that look like they came straight out of some beautiful and rare predatory animal, and kissable lips so striking that kissing them would feel like a decadent sin. Then comes the appraisal and finally the smug pleased smile.

"You really are brilliant at this." Korra compliments every time with a seductive glance at him through the mirror.

"I have the best material to work with." Noatak retorts lightly, smoothing a lose curl of her pinned hair back into place.

"Is Asami's stuff that good?" She enquires with fake modesty, swabbing her finger on some bright golden eye shadow and rubbing it between her fingers to savor the texture.

"I meant the canvas, Korra." He smiles and traces her cheek lightly. "You are a masterpiece in itself, my love."

"Suck up." The Avatar grins and stick out her tongue childishly.

"Now, now. That cheeky tongue shouldn't be tempting me or I'll end up ruining your lipstick." The former equalist jokes with a kiss to the back of her neck.

"It will probably end up smeared all over you soon anyway." Korra wiggles her brows lecherously at him.

"Later. The gala first." He replies, amused and pleased at the innuendo. He would like nothing better than to have her lip prints all over his body.

"Fine, let's get this stupid thing over with." She rises from her seat in front of the mirror and picks up the shoes Asami gave her, wondering how her friend always had shoes that fit on the Avatar's stupidly small feet.

"Just try to have fun for once." Noatak advises, knowing full well that if he doesn't distract her she'll end up getting irritated at the protocol of the annual Spring gala or angry at prying reporters.

"I will if you dance with me." Korra bargains slyly, shoes already on and swaying her hips delightfully as she walks to him.

Noatak ends up appreciatively watching the way her curvaceous silhouette moves in the lovely pretty plum dress with its shapely silk clinging to her in all the right ways before fanning out to her feet in a long fishtail skirt, the translucent sleeves hang like lovely living veils, the plunging v-neckline and the open back show just enough skin that he wants to kiss a trail down her spine or across her collarbone and down her cleavage.

"It would be my pleasure, Avatar Korra." He replies, extending a hand to escort her.

She accepts his hand and lets him twirl her for a moment before they stand hand and hand and prepare to leave. The person behind the door tries to skitter back and escape but fails to do so in time and the door opens right as she stumbles and falls.

"Nilak? Should you be playing with Jinny?" Korra leans down to help the little five year old up.

She smells like cinnamon and wild flowers and Nilak just wants to snuggle into that scent and ask her to stay home tonight because she wants this beautiful version of mama all to herself, daddy too even though he doesn't look anywhere near as stunning as Korra, he looks handsome in the dark maroon and black clothing with his hair slicked back but no matter how attractive he is or how much Nilak clings to him all the time, tonight it's mama that captures all her attention.

"Is everything alright, sweetheart?" Noatak watches the child cling to the Avatar almost greedily.

"Mama is pretty." Nilak mumbles shyly.

"Isn't she? Daddy thinks so too." He replies with pride and watches the way Korra's face lights up because a compliment from Nilak is worth more to her than any other flattery anyone could possibly use on her.

"Stay." The child pleads.

"We can't, Nini." The Avatar hugs the girl and then pats her unruly hair. "But we'll be back in a little bit, I promise."

I takes a lot to convince the little girl to let them go, yet some tears and a lot of bargaining later they are late but on their way and Nilak is sniffling but sucking on a sweet treat while Jinora reads her a story.

The evening is long, so very very long. Much like her mother, Nilak grows bored very easily until Jinora's stories no longer appease her and the many little games the teenager uses to entertain her become dull, the radio seems to keep repeating the same boring man talking about stuff that is too complicated for her little head and the bits of music that come out of it are just so slow and unappealing.

Dinner is a quiet affair because the food aunty Pema sent is good enough that she stuffs her face with it and has no time to talk between chewing and swallowing but after the food and a lot of playing around with Naga and her toys, Nilak gets bored again and Jinora's best solution is to pop her into a bath and let her play and bend messy splashes as the airbender washes her hair. Yet after that it's bed time because it's late and Jinora has to clean up the flooded bathroom.

Another story is told while she lies warm in her fluffy bed with her Mingan plushy snuggled beside her, Nilak nearly falls asleep and Jinora leaves the room so silently that the child doesn't notice her absence until she opens her eyes again. She doesn't want to sleep, she's tired but still bored and mama promised they'd be back before she was sleeping so she stubbornly tries to stay awake.

After a while her eyelids start to droop again and she crawls out of bed to find something to keep her awake. Jinora fell asleep reading a book in the living room and rather than wake her Nilak sneaks into the place she's been dying to go to all night long.

She's not supposed to be in her parents' room, she's especially not supposed to be playing with mama's things but she really can't help herself. She wants to be as pretty as mama and putting on the long single-buttoned turquoise and white coat in Korra's closet makes her feel like a grown-up because it's big enough to be a dress on her, mama's shoes are huge on her feet but she likes those too because she can't dress up without shoes, right?

Nilak tries to put her hair up like Korra with little lacquered sticks but it doesn't want to stay up and tumbles down in twisted chocolate knots around the cobalt accessories, only her braids are still safely framing her face. It's too frustrating so she moves on to the really fun part.

There's only two or three bottles of perfume and they are mostly full because Korra rarely uses them but Nilak sprays a large amount all over her and then proceeds to scatter makeup items everywhere- the colors are bright and pretty, the creams feel funny on her skin, the powders make fun puffs and clouds before they fade and using the brushes and the lip-paints is like her favorite hobby of drawing except she is the canvas herself and that makes things even more fun.

"I didn't mean to set his clothes on fire. It was an accident…" The voice flutters from the hallway and Nilak freezes in fright.

"One that wouldn't happen if you didn't insist on showing off your bending when you dance." A second voice admonished sternly but hiding some amusement.

"You're the one who told me to have fun." Korra's voice grumbles closer now.

Nilak rushes to hide the mess she made in drawers and under bed sheets, then she sits and hopes that daddy and mama will think her just as pretty as Korra herself but when the door opens the pair just stands there looking around in obvious surprise.

Room is chaos hidden so clumsily that it just makes it worse, the bed sheets are dirty with a myriad of colors, Korra's clothes are too and strewn across the floor, the mirror is covered in sticky handprints, the heavy smell of spilled perfume fills the air but it's Nilak's appearance that captures their attention- the Avatar's clothes are too big on her and falling off her skinny shoulders, she's swimming in the too big shoes, her hair is a tangled mess stabbed through with cobalt carved hair sticks and it's dirty with foundation and powders, her eyes are layered with many splatters of colors but she thought it was boring to have both eyes the same so each eye as a different collection of hues, the black eyeliner is so thick caked around her eyes that it smudges all over her face, the mascara is so badly applied that black streaks decorate her eyelids, the pink blush on her cheeks is so heavy it's almost clownish and her lips are stained red in such a messy way that the bloody pigment spreads out up her cheeks in a scary cartoonish smile.

"Oh Nilak…" Noatak sighs lightly, shaking his head slightly and burying his face in the palm of his hand.

"Nilak! How many times must we tell you not to play with mama's things?" Korra reprimands, trying to hold back her laughter at the sight of the girl and failing utterly because it comes out in snorts between her words. "Look at this mess!"

They didn't like it. Nilak realizes this quickly and she's not sure what's worse- the scolding Korra gives out, the laughter or Noatak's tired disappointment. She doesn't even apologizes and just looks down with tears starting to smudge the mess of makeup even further as she quietly resigns to the fact that all her hard work was for nothing.

Noatak notices the reaction and taps Korra on the shoulder to stop her nonsensical rant as she uncovers more confusion stashed in the drawers and under the bed, he nods towards the little girl and Korra starts laughing all over again unable to hold back but immediately feels terrible about it when she sees tears.

"Nilak…" Noatak crouches down to the child's level. "You were just trying to look as pretty as mama, weren't you?"

Nilak nods and hiccups a little but she doesn't have the nerve to look at him.

"Want some help?" He offers, picking up makeup remover and a cloth along with the brushes.

The girl nods enthusiastically almost at once and finally looks at him, her excited smile is heartwarming but Korra is still snorting at the sight of that cartoonish mess of color. Noatak starts cleaning away the mess from her face and lets Korra handle their daughter's hair with a few waterbending cheats to clean up the mess.

"Just remember that you're not supposed to touch mama's things when we're not around, alright sweetheart?" He reprimands gently but seriously as he finishes cleaning up the mess she made on her own face.

"Yes, daddy…" Nilak grumbles.

Korra ends up getting a sashed tunic that Bolin gave her for her birthday, she hasn't worn in years because it's too garish and has too many sparkles and beads on it but she finds good use for it by slipping it on the little girl and tying it such a manner that it works as a dress without falling off or looking baggy. Meanwhile Noatak chose to lightly dust the girl's eyes with violet and gold to bright out the periwinkle in her eyes, he then sprinkled lightweight translucent glitter on her cheeks and pale pink shiny lip-paint on her lips.

"Look down. Stay still." He commands, much like he does with Korra. "Don't blink."

The eyeliner isn't black but a soft shade of white and goes on quickly and smoothly. Once they are done, Noatak picks up the girl and turns her to the mirror.

Nilak stares- she looks pretty, really pretty, and all the glitter and sparkles catch the light in a way that mesmerizes her, she plays with the dangly beads of the tunic and tilts her head to see her face a little better, smacking her slippery lips because of the weird sensation. It's odd and takes too long, it wears down her patience but she likes it because now she looks a little more like mama, now she looks like a fancy little lady.

"Now that you're all dressed up, you just need a party to go to." Korra comments with a smile, smacking a dark kiss on the little girl's cheek.

"Why don't you and mama go dance while Jinora and I clean this up?" Noatak suggests and the girls' eyes practically sparkle at the suggestion.

They wake Jinora who immediately becomes frantic and apologizes when she spots the mess but they don't blame her because she's barely fifteen and they know Nilak has a habit of sneaking out of bed long after they believe her asleep. With the airbender's help Noatak manages to clean up the room in as much time as it took to dress up the little girl, even the bedding is changed and the heavy scent of perfume is cleared out before all the dirty garments and sheets are shoved in the laundry basket.

When Jinora leaves, she compliments Nilak's appearance and offers to teach her some new dances next time they spend the evening together. The little girl is excited by the prospect and waves as the airbender leaves before she returns to her mother.

Korra is barefooted and dances with the girl to some new tune on the late night music station of the radio, she bends little sparks of fire in the wake of her hands and legs and little fine swirls of water from the kitchen sink around her with every twirl along with gusts of air that make their clothes flutter, she has become fond of bending as she dances just to show off and Nilak is enthralled by the spectacle. Noatak leans against the doorframe and watches them, ignoring the frivolous use of bending for once and smiling lightly, wanting to memorize the scene or perhaps stay in that moment forever.

"Daddy, you too!" Nilak demands after a while, pulling him into the living-room and opening her arms expectantly.

"As you wish, princess." He takes the child's hands and lets her stand on his feet as he dances her across the room gracefully, with little spins and twirls that make the girl giggle and ask for more.

As much as she wants some alone time with her husband, Korra doesn't mind waiting because she knows the child will exhaust herself to sleep soon and the scene is just so lovely that it makes up for all the wait. She smirks in the background, watching them both lovingly and somewhat jealous but her wait doesn't last long and they end pulling her to them for a three-way dance to some soft jazzy beat…

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Look down. Stay still." Noatak murmurs the command, his hand is not as steady as it once was but he's still competent enough to swipe the dark eyeliner onto Nilak's eyes. "Don't blink."

She does blink because she's so distracted but he manages to salvage the cat-eyed wing before it smudges, though he frowns a little at her obvious unfocused dreamy state. The sixteen year old was so nervous just a couple of hours ago, tossing about clothing and panicking about what would be appropriate to wear in the Fire Nation for this gala the Fire Lady is hosting in the Avatar's honor but as soon as Noatak sat her down to fix the mess she was making on her makeup with her usually talented but now nervous hands, the girl seemed to quiet down at once with a faraway look in her eyes.

"Are you alright, baby?" He asked, tilting her by the chin to apply some light peach color on her lips.

"Yeah… Just strutting down memory lane." She smiles, remembering her antics eleven years prior and how happy she had been that night. Her beaming face can light up a room with beauty that rivals even her mother's.

"Are you guys ready? We're going to be late." Speaking of Korra, she struts into the room in a lovely red, blue and gold dress that brings out the best in her curves with its tight fitting bodice and layers of knee high skirt that whirl when she moves.

"Since when do you care about punctuality, mom?" Nilak tosses at the woman playfully.

"I don't, I'm just tired of waiting for you to primp up so you can steal my spotlight." The Avatar sticks her tongue out childishly and Nilak laughs and blushes slightly because that's her mother's way of calling her beautiful.

"Dad is the one doing the primping, he can make anyone look pretty." Nilak chuckles and smiles at her father. "He's the talented one with makeup."

"And you haven't even seen his bacon face." Korra replied, moving closer and elbowing the man in question lightly while laughing at the old joke, completely disregarding the fact that his scars are real now.

"Well, makeup or no makeup, together you two steal the spotlight even from the Fire Lady herself." Noatak compliments the women of his life self-assuredly, wrapping an arm around Korra and leaning down to place a soft kiss to her red lips. "My ladies are always the gems of the party."


	8. Jealousy

"Castaway" Ficlet 8: Jealousy

_(For the lovely Anon that requested jealous Noatak and Korra in the parenting sense. _

_Probably not what was expected but still very adorable sugary family fluff._

_1,051k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Aahhh…" Korra said, opening her mouth to coach the little one year old in front of her to do the same and when she did Korra gently popped a spoon full of fruit porridge into Nilak's mouth.

The baby tasted the food, spat half of it out and swallowed the rest. The Avatar frowned and blew a stray lock of hair from her face impatiently before cleaning up the child's sticky face and trying again.

"Come on now, big spoonful." She moved the spoon to capture the baby's attention with slow spiraling movements and this time the little girl did take in the spoon and swallowed all of the warm sweet goo.

"Good girl." Korra praised cheerfully and pat Nilak's head, the child laughed and clapped her hands delighted by the happy tone.

"I see you've made some progress." A voice spoke behind her and Korra tilted her head back comically to grin at the owner of said deep rusty baritone who had just walked in carrying a box of groceries.

"Yes, I can finally do something you can't." She stuck out her tongue in jest still in the awkward position and he swooped down to capture that cheeky tongue as was their habit for a quaint little upside-down kiss.

"Yes, well, brag while you can, Avatar." Noatak retorted after the kiss, watching her sit normally again with a huge grin on her face as she coached the baby into accepting another spoonful of food.

"Oh I intend to." Korra chuckled and wiped Nilak's drooling mouth carefully. "Isn't that right, Nini? Mama can do something that daddy can't~!" She sang the words in mockery and the baby laughed again.

Noatak tried to maintain his usually blank stoic expression but his lips tightened with annoyance, he refused to admit it but he was jealous and he knew full well he was having a taste of what Korra often endured so he would not give her the pleasure of knowing she was getting to him.

The fact was, just as soon as Nilak's colic issues had disappeared and she had started sleeping through the night at the precocious age of three months a new challenge had arisen- teething. The baby would randomly start screaming and drooling and bite everything in sight even a couple of months before the first tooth ever made its debut in her gums much to everyone's annoyance and only Noatak could calm her, this had really irritated the Avatar because she had always been jealous of his talent with the baby and the way his voice, a voice that often struck pure terror in grand enemies, could both mesmerize the child or put her to sleep with his raspy songs.

Yet there was one thing Noatak had never able to do and that was to get Nilak to eat, when it came to bottles she would push them away and cry and when it came to other foods she just tossed them at him or spit all over the place so the fact that Korra could feed the baby with just a little strain to her patience was something that made her immensely proud because it was the one thing he couldn't do.

"…Don't get too conceited, soon enough she will be feeding herself and won't need you for the task either." He grumbled rather sourly as he took a seat next to them after placing the box on the table and taking off his coat.

"Looks like someone is having a bad case of the jellies." The Avatar teased and dabbed some sweet milky porridge on his cheek with a jolt of laughter. "Right, Nini?"

"Dah!" The baby replied, totally clueless but giggling in reaction to her mother's good humor.

"Hilarious." Noatak retorted dryly. He attempted to wipe away the goo but Korra beat him to it by leaning close and actually licking it off his cheek.

"Um… Tastes much better off you than off the spoon." She joked and then winked in a rather lecherous manner. "Maybe I should try that more thoroughly later."

Korra chuckled before guiding another spoonful of the porridge into the baby's waiting mouth while the surprised and slightly blushed man stared and struggled to find a good comeback.

"…" Nothing came to mind and Noatak ended up just clearing his throat and watching the Avatar, trying hard to resist the temptation of paying her back by licking every inch of her body because even in a stained loose green tunic, with messy hair and making silly faces she still looked absolutely delectable and he was supposed to be irritated and jealous, damn it, not drooling all over her just because of a silly joke.

"Cat got your tongue?" Korra teased as she finished feeding the baby and cleaned her up. She then handed Nilak a water-filled rubbery chew toy that he had just frozen with bending since the cold helped with the teething pain.

"I merely didn't see a need to rise to childish baits." He retorted testily and picked up the baby.

"My, this really is getting to you, huh?" The Avatar grinned mischievously.

"Of course not." With that he walked away with his daughter to go change her dirty clothes but as soon as they were out of Korra's earshot he grumbled to the baby. "You could stop letting your mama grind my gears, you know?"

"Puu…" Nilak blew out the sound, still chewing on her toy.

"Right. You probably enjoy our battles for your attention, don't you?" He muttered, holding the girl up above him before making her swoop down repeatedly until she laughed and then he held her up so he could kiss her nose.

"Dah!" The baby agreed with an innocent coy smile and snuggled close to his large warm body.

"You are the most adorable and yet manipulative little critter I have ever encountered." Noatak caressed Nilak's tiny head with a more mollified smile this time.

"She's your daughter, what did you expect?" Korra replied, having caught that last comment when she walked up to him, wiping her damp hands after cleaning up the baby's dishes.

Noatak just smirked in reply as Nilak practically purred in delight at his attentions and the Avatar hung over his shoulder to place a playful peacemaking peck on his face.


	9. Valentine

_"Castaway" Ficlet 9: Valentine_

_(__**Happy (late) Valentine's Day, Amorrians!**_

_It's Valentine's Day in Republic City… Or something similar. Cheesy romance a little sexiness near the end…_

_1,753k words. Enjoy.) _

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

It was night already, he was late and she hated waiting, he knew that so why did he insist on keeping her waiting? It was bad enough that it was her day off and yet all her friends, even Tenzin himself, seemed to have plans and dates so her whole boring day had just been about lounging around, giving Naga a bath and taking care of Nilak while she waited for her own date to get home.

"At least Nilak's asleep now…" She spoke to nobody in particular as she sank onto the couch with her head tipped back, glad to finally have a moment of peace to herself. She wore only her slacks and one of Noatak's old button-up shirts that was tied at the bottom and was undone just enough to show her generous cleavage.

"And here I wanted to put her to bed tonight." He walked in casually with a bag in his arms and leaned down to kiss the Avatar before she could react. "Good evening, Korra."

"You're late." Korra grumbled but kissed back lightly.

"My apologies. Work ran late and I had an errand to run as well." Noatak removed his coat and then the mask that he placed on the low table.

"What errand?" She raised a brow suspiciously.

"Would you like to know?" He smirked lightly.

"Well duh!"

"Here." Noatak pulled a box out of the paper bag and handed it to her rather unceremoniously before he sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"What's this?" She examined the flat octagonal box wrapped in crinkled red paper with a white flower decorating it.

"A little treat." He replied, urging her to open it.

Korra ripped the paper off and opened the box finding a collection of delicious looking sculpted bonbons decorated with tiny sugar flowers.

She didn't have that much experience with chocolate, she knew it was a western Earth Kingdom confection made out of grains native to the Fire Nation but she had only tasted it after arriving in Republic City and only a few times, courtesy of Asami, yet from the rare occasions she had eaten the treat the flavor had become ingrained in her mind so that simply looking at the pretty bonbons that seemed much too beautiful to eat made her mouth water.

"What's the occasion?" Korra licked her lips lightly, tracing the edges of the box and trying to resist temptation.

"You don't know what day it is?"

"Huh? Day?" She considered his words but no special dates occurred to her that month other than Nilak's first birthday that was a week away.

"I guess it's to be expected. It isn't celebrated in the Water Tribes after all." Noatak replied with an understanding nod, after so long living in the United Republic he had almost forgotten the difference in customs with their homeland.

"I've been in Republic City for two years, Noatak." Korra interjected skeptically. How could she have missed any holidays after so long?

"Yes but last year you were under captivity and the year before we were at war so I suppose there was no time for trivial traditions." He reminded.

"Ok but are you going to tell me what day it is or what?" She crossed her arms looking impatient and struggling to resist the chocolates for a little longer.

"A day to celebrate love." He smiled handsomely despite his marked face.

"Oh?" Now she was intrigued.

"Yes, it is custom to offer one's romantic interest gifts on this day, traditionally sweets or flowers. But of course the traditions vary from place to place." Noatak replied lightly, twisting a lock of her hair between his fingers absentminded. He had considered flowers but he knew she was tired of those and disliked how impractical and girly they were so he discarded the idea.

"Really?" Korra looked down at the treats and then smiled at him. "Is this your way of saying you love me?"

"One of many, my dear Avatar." He leaned close and rubbed their noses lightly together in that display of affection that was so typical to the Water Tribe and that he had become so fond of.

"It still amazes me that the fearsome Amon has such a soft side." She joked as she returned the little affection.

"Only for the ladies of my life." The former equalist replied, referring to Korra and Nilak and perhaps to his mother as well.

"I love you too, old man." She grinned and tapped his chest lightly and bashfully with her knuckles. "Sorry I have no gift for you."

"I don't need repayment." Noatak spoke truthfully and let her lean on him, after all since when did acts of love demand reciprocity?

"Yeah, but I'm missing out on the fun of finding you a gift." Korra chuckled.

"There's always White day." He suggested.

"Huh?" The avatar looked at him in confusion.

"It's a month from now, a day for those who received gifts today to reciprocate the favor. It's not as popular." Noatak explained patiently.

"Sounds cool." She grinned before tracing the sugary confections with the tips of her fingers. "So what's the story behind all this?"

"Curious? Most people don't even know the story, the legend has been forgotten by many but everyone still enjoys the celebration."

"Of course I'm curious, tell me." She insisted, now getting comfortable on his lap to listen to the story.

"Long ago, during a rather bloody period of the hundred year war, the was a time when the Fire Nation prohibited marriages of any man hundred a certain age, marriages with other cultures were also forbidden because colonization and intermingling was not yet the goal. The point of this was to direct all the single men, and possibly some women, into the army- married people have more to loose and therefore make lesser soldiers and more likely to run instead of fighting to the death, not to mention that if a married man died in battle the army would have to provide for the widow."

"What does this have to do with love?" The Avatar interrupted, obviously puzzled.

"I'm getting to that." Noatak stated with chuckle. "There was a man of Air Nomad heritage but a non-bender that survived the genocide and chose the life of a monk. This man broke the law and began to secretly bless and marry couples in subterfuge despite the bounty that the army placed on his head."

"So… This is basically a day to celebrate some hero priest?" Korra questioned.

"No. The monk was caught and imprisoned but he still stood up to the Fire Nation and claimed that he could continue to defend love and marry people so long as there was breath in his body."

"And?" She demanded more, eagerly hoping for a climax to the story.

"What do you think happened? They made sure there was no more breath in his body. He was accused of treason and, story has it, burned at the stake on this very day of the year."

"That's it? No fight for justice? No miraculous salvation or escape?" Korra was a little disappointed.

"Not everything is about fighting, Korra. He was a pacifist and his purpose was to defend love so fighting and hating his enemy would have been counter-productive, he became a martyr and a symbol of the purity of love which is exactly what most nations celebrate in his memory on this day no matter how naïve the whole concept is." Noatak explained, amused by her take on the whole tale.

"Hm… It sounds like a great holiday and a great story but it feels like celebrating an execution. I'm not sure I like that ending, a heroic fight for love would be more my style." The Avatar stated.

"I believe everyone is well aware of that by now, my love." He teased, tracing her lower lip with his thumb and remembering exactly how hard she had fought for him.

"Why is chocolate traditional though?" She asked while tilting her head to his touch automatically.

"I assume it started as symbol of cooperation between the Fire Nation that produces the raw material, the Air Nomads that refined the confection process and the Earth Kingdom that actually produces it. It is something common to the nations that celebrate this day and therefore to the United Republic as well." He mused with his usual technical practically but then grinned and added- "It also happens to be an aphrodisiac so I assume that plays a major part as well."

"Really now?" Korra smiled mischievously raising the box up. "Shall we test that?"

"It would be my pleasure." Noatak took a random bonbon and placed it in her mouth. "Good?"

The crisp chocolate shell broke apart with minimal pressure of her teeth and the flavor within it flooded her mouth- it was some sort of liquor, cherry for what she could tell, and indeed a preserved cherry rolled onto her tongue and its tart sweetness mingled with the chocolate in the most delectable way.

"Alcoholic." The Avatar replied with a chuckle, still savoring the flavor. "But yeah, delicious."

He kissed her deeply and invasively so that their lips glued together and his tongue wrapped around hers in a heated dance for a few moments before he broke the kiss with his usual smirk. "Yes, delicious indeed."

Korra licked her lips that still tingled lightly from the passionate kiss and then she straddled his lap, setting the box next to them. She grabbed another bonbon, this one a little lighter in shade and bigger as well.

"These have different fillings don't they?" She questioned, eyeing the sweet in her hand almost impishly.

"Apparently." Noatak nodded.

"Let's have some fun figuring them out." Korra grinned and bit into the chocolate whose golden contents dripped in sticky gooey strands down her chin and on her cleavage. "Oh, caramel."

"My favorite." He pulled her closer and leaned in just enough to place his face on her chest and lick seductively and slowly between her cleavage and up to her collarbone before doing the same to her chin and capturing her mouth for another heated kiss.

Korra blushed but arched her back slightly to press closer to him and make that sweet kiss harder and needier, wondering just how long that box of chocolates would last, how far she could abuse her clumsiness and get them both messy and how she planned to use the treats to enjoy the evening thoroughly.

~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

_(Author's Note: Maybe I should continue this and add what they did afterwards? *wiggles brows*)_


	10. How Did This Happen?

"Castaway" Ficlet : How Did This Happen?

_(For ravenstarwind40_

_As usual, these ficlets are NOT to be taken too seriously because even though they are canon in the "Castaway" universe for now, this can change and most likely will considering how the story evolves. Still, I have to warn that this ficlet is VERY spoilery for my headcanon future for Korra and Noatak's family (even though it won't spoil any real action in the story). Read at your own risk._

_Some drama and family stress but some cuteness too._

_3,189k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

«Damn it!» Korra tried to curse out loud but could only think the words because her mouth was too busy gagging and filling up with bile as she rushed to the bathroom.

She reached the toilet just in time to empty the contents of her stomach into it. She had been feeling off for a while but never expected to become so violently ill out of nowhere. Then again, it had happened enough times lately that she should have predicted this.

Vomiting was never something pleasant to anyone but to the Avatar it was torture, she hated the way her throat burned and her stomach roiled, she hated the sweat on her brow and the sensation that she was choking and her chest was being compressed by a trash compactor, yet most of all she hated feeling weak and being unable to hide it.

There was a knock on the door and she wanted to answer but couldn't stop gagging for long enough to say a single word.

"Mom? You ok in there?" Nilak's voice floated from the other side of the door, sounding concerned and quite nervous. "Mom?"

"I'm fine." Korra managed to say in a rush before she gagged again.

"You don't sound ok." The twelve year old objected. "Can I come in?"

"No!" Korra replied a panic just before she choked and coughed for a long painful minute. "N-no. It's ok, Nilak. You can go now."

"Are you feeling sick again?" The girl asked, almost as distressed as the Avatar herself. "Can I help? I could get some ginger tea or I could try healing?" At once, Nilak's protective caretaking instincts kicked in, she simply couldn't stand seeing someone suffering, especially not if it was a loved one.

"I'll be…" Korra paused to cough and spit bile for a moment. "…fine. I'll be fine."

"Mom, please! I'm worried!" The girl said, leaning against the door. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"

"I said- I'm fine!" The Avatar snapped angrily but ended puking her guts out again and this time Nilak disobeyed and came inside, kneeling next to her and holding back her hair immediately with trembling hands. It was always a shock for a child to see such weakness in their parents.

"Avatar Korra, you are _not_ fine." Nilak scolded sternly, sounding almost like her father. Speaking of which…

"Where's your dad?" Korra asked tiredly, pressing her forehead against cold porcelain and spitting to get the acrid taste out of her mouth.

"At the school with uncle Liu." She pinned her mother's hair carefully with one of her own pins and rubbed the woman's back slowly.

"Your brothers?" The Avatar asked, panting slightly to catch her breath while her stomach still churned and threatened to turn inside out again.

"Uncle Bo took them out for mochi after school." The girl replied with ease. "I was going too but I chose not to because I was worried for you."

"I already said I'm…" Korra swallowed dryly and took a breath. "I'm fine, Nini."

"Yeah, that's why you're puking all over the place." The girl rolled her eyes full of sass.

"It's probably just something I ate, kiddo." The Avatar tried to sound convincing but suddenly retched again, destroying any and all confidence her words inspired.

"That's it. I'm going to try healing." Nilak decided in mild panic. She had never really mastered the skill of healing, she was pretty mediocre at it, but she was desperate enough to try.

Korra wanted to argue but her mouth was once more too busy to form words. She didn't want Nilak to heal her, she didn't even want Nilak, or Noatak for that matter, to touch her because she was terrified of what either of them might sense… She had been in denial for some time now but it was getting harder and harder to refute the signs, after all the last time Korra felt this sick was…

"Mom?" Nilak interrupted her thoughts, her hands were already covered in glowing liquid. "Let me do it."

"I don't want…" Korra argued feebly.

"Too bad, I'm doing it anyway." With that the girls pressed the cool caress of the water onto her mother's body.

The Avatar practically held her breath as Nilak worked, the healing soothed her stomach enough that she managed to stop gagging and retching but the nausea didn't disappear and after several minutes the young girl was getting frustrated and her brows scrunched together as she attempted to focus a little harder on the healing. At last she gave up and the water was shoved into the sink but Nilak's hands rested against her mother's skin, slipping under her cerulean top unceremoniously to rest on Korra's abdomen as soon as she realized something was different.

"Hm… Mom?" The girl looked a little doubtful and unsure of how to voice her thoughts.

"Don't." Korra begged, she didn't have the strength to push her daughter back but she didn't want to hear the words and her troubled expression triggered something in Nilak.

"You know, don't you?" The twelve year old scowled, her hands still planted on her mother's skin, sensing something unique that she only knew from her father's descriptions of it, something they only they could feel with their unique skills. "You know but you don't want to hear it."

"Nilak, just stop." The Avatar shook her head tiredly and wiped sweat from her forehead. "It's nothing."

"Mom, you're pregnant. That's not nothing." Nilak finally let go and crossed her arms.

"Nuh-uh. I'm not having this conversation." The thirty year old Avatar tried to get up but slumped back to the floor with another wave of vertigo. "Ugh…"

"What's the big deal?" The girl was confused. "You've had three kids already, what's wrong with one more?"

"Exactly! Three kids! I'm the Avatar, I don't have time for this." Korra snapped but the words came out cruel and tasted like ashy lies.

"Gee, thanks, mom." Nilak retorted a little dryly. "Good to know we're such a waste of time."

"I'm sorry, I didn't… I mean, I'm sorry, that came out awful." The Avatar regretted her callousness at once.

"I know what you mean, mom. You love us but you're busy with less than safe things and so is dad." Nilak waved off the remark because fortunately for Korra this was a girl that knew when she was being lied to and in this case that meant she knew Korra was just making flimsy excuses. Still, she didn't think she should insist for the truth, not yet. "You should have been more careful then."

"That's just it- we were careful!" Korra countered with a childish pout.

"Riiight…" Nilak sounded sarcastic and unconvinced and watched her mother blush. If there was one person that had caught Korra and Noatak in compromising positions more than once it was this kid, she had become somewhat used to the fact that her parents were sexual creatures from very early on whether they were aware of it or not.

"Seriously, we were! We are!" The Avatar defended, wondering why the hell she was discussing her sex life with a twelve year old. "Whatever, the point is- this shouldn't be happening."

"Is it really that bad?" The girl asked tentatively, she for one wouldn't mind more siblings, she loved having a big family even though she was a bit of a loner by nature or perhaps it was precisely because of that since family was always there even if she tried to isolate herself, family understood what was in her blood and what made her strange, family could support each other, family didn't get bored and leave like some people did.

"Nilak…" Korra sighed.

How could she explain it? How could Korra tell her daughter that she wasn't scared of having another kid and instead what terrified her was that she hadn't had symptoms, and dreams, so horrible since she was pregnant with Nilak herself and that made her fear a repeat of the nightmare that had been Nilak's birth? She couldn't tell her daughter that, she could tell the girl that she had practically died because of her, no, not when Nilak already had so much sense of guilt to handle in her life.

The twins had been so easy- they had been planned, a gamble that Korra desperately wanted to try and that Noatak only risked because she and Nilak acted miserable until he accepted and because the odds of Nilak's situation repeating itself should have been null. Of course, they never expected two at once but everything had gone so smoothly, so safely, and not a sign of bloodbending or visions or creepy Spirits influencing things from the backstage; the labor had been painful, stupidly long and filled with screaming and arguing but it had been normal and the boys were perfectly healthy and the spitting image of their mother. Still, the couple had decided never to do it again, the twins had been a stroke of luck, a blessing, and they weren't foolish enough to test that luck further even if Nilak's case was more likely to have been a fluke than the boys'.

And now, after all the immense precautions they took, even after all the herbs, tricks, condoms and other assorted new products in the market, it seemed they were destined to have to go through all the anxiety of a third pregnancy… One that didn't exactly come in the most stable of times for the Avatar either.

_«Well, at least it's not harmonic convergence time again.»_ The little voice of her conscience tried to weakly cheer her up and failed completely.

"Mom?" Nilak waved a hand in front of the Avatar's face. Apparently she had zoned out for a bit.

"Help me get to bed, ok? I want to sleep this off." Korra stated softly, bending some water to drink and wash out the horrid acidic taste on her tongue.

The girl agreed and helped her mother up, supporting her all the way towards the bedroom where the Avatar sunk onto her mattress and sighed. She didn't really plan to sleep, she just wanted to think in peace without feeling sicker but as soon as she was lying on her stomach and shortly after her head hit the pillow she was already dozing off, dragged unwilling to some hazy dark dream that she didn't want to have while Nilak took the initiative to check with Pema about dinner since it was obvious nobody was going to cook in the Avatar's household that evening.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Korra… Korra…" A voice reached into her shadowy dreams and slowly pulled her back to awareness. The tone was gentle and soft but urgent and distressed and that caught her attention.

"Hm… Noatak?" The Avatar blinked sleepily and raised a tattooed hand to rub her eyes as she rolled around to look at the man that sat beside her on the edge of the bed. It was dark already which meant she slept most of the afternoon away but for once she couldn't remember what she had been dreaming about and that was a relief.

"Are you really awake?" He enquired, lightly pushing her messy hair off her face.

"Yeah." She nodded and sat up, rubbing her temples to chase away the beginning of a headache. "Where are the kids?"

"Having dinner at the temple." Noatak replied and watched her cautiously for a long silent moment.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" Korra shot at him nervously even though she could guess the answer.

"Nilak told me." He replied somberly.

"Ugh, I should have told her to keep her mouth shut." The Avatar regretted forgetting that Nilak always told her father every darn little thing.

"Why?" He sounded almost pained. "Why would you hide this from me, Korra?"

"Because… I don't know, maybe because I don't want to believe it." She looked at everything but his face.

Noatak stared at her and then sighed and ran his hands through his hair that was starting to pepper with gray at the temples, it was a very human display of exhaustion and stress. "How did this even happen?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." She shrugged. "Maybe that time at Asami's party? Or maybe that day on the beach?"

"Both situations had some distinct lapses in judgment but not enough to justify the current situation." He pointed out.

"Then I got nothing." She flopped back onto the bed, once again rubbing the sides of her head. However, she was grateful that he hadn't flipped his lid and started panicking like he had six years before when they found out she was expecting two babies instead of one...To be fair she had panicked even more than him at the time and there were still cracks in the house walls to prove it.

"Korra…" Noatak moved closer and his hand travelled slowly up her thigh and hip until it slipped under her shirt. "May I?"

"Go ahead." The Avatar nodded and felt his hand tremble lightly against her skin before it slowly settled over her lower abdomen.

Noatak's face went from restrained exhaustion to focused calm and then to a slight frown. The silence stretched out as he concentrated and Korra was so acutely aware of the heat of his palm against her skin that it was starting make her fidget and chew her lip impatiently.

"So? Are you convinced?" Korra broke the silence when she couldn't take anymore.

"Nilak is getting better me. It's still so small that I would have missed it completely if I didn't know what I was looking for." He commented, confirming what they already knew. It was hard to tell how he felt because his tone was so neutral but she knew him well enough that she thought she could make out some pride, some awe or an emotion similar to it, and plenty anxiety too, all mixed up and hidden under that mask of composure.

"Oh…" Korra didn't know what else to say because suddenly it was all too real, having Noatak confirm the pregnancy sobered her up and made everything ten times more serious because there was no way he was mistaken and so there was no way she could keep hiding in denial.

He moved closer, his hand still rested on her stomach but now he was examining the shadows under eyes and the pallor of her skin. She expected him to ask what they were going to do now but instead he just asked- "How are you feeling?"

"Lousy." The Avatar closed her eyes and took a slow breath- it was time to bear all the Pai Sho tiles. "Which is exactly why I'm stressing out."

"How so?" He enquired.

"Noatak… It's not like last time, I feel so damn sick and drained and I've been dreaming again. It's like…"

"Like when you expected Nilak." He finished for her and now there was an edge of sharp fear in his is collected voice. "I see." He didn't have to say anymore, she could tell he was getting dragged into exactly the same fears she was.

"What if it happens again? What if something goes wrong? I can't heal this time, I no longer have a moon-drop. What if this kid is the one that kills me for good?" Korra asked, her throat had suddenly gone dry but she forced the words out anyway.

Only then did she realize how awful her words sounded, like she was blaming the child, like she was blaming Noatak's genes for something that might not even happen. She knew he was considering something along the same lines and blaming himself, he had the annoying habit of doing that, and she regretted speaking like that but she didn't have the strength to take back the words.

"That won't happen." Noatak snapped at once, refusing to hear her negativity even though his tone confirmed that he was thinking the same thing. "I won't let it happen. Everything will be ok."

"And here I thought you were supposed to be the realistic one in our relationship." She smiled weakly and sardonically.

"I am and the reality is that I will not lose you, not to a child of ours." He stated with absolute determination.

"…I guess we'll worry it about it when the time comes." Korra retorted, she wanted to trust him but she was too scared and so she ended up falling into her default confident mode that only took one thing at the time. "You know what the fucked up part is? I actually want to be happy about this, _we_ should be able to be happy about this- we are healthy adults in a loving and stable relationship and a kid should be something to celebrate but nooooo, we can't, instead here we are panicking and wondering what the hell we did wrong."

"…You're right." Noatak nodded and gently pulled her to sit on his lap. "This really should be something to celebrate, it's a result of our love and after all what are really the odds that Nilak's case could repeat itself? The circumstances were so unique back then and we are so much better prepared now…"

"You're trying to calm yourself even more than you're trying to comfort me, aren't you?" She smirked knowingly but she appreciated the effort and wrapped her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Yes but it's still true. We can't only look at the frightening side and the possible dangers, this is our baby and that should be something good, shouldn't it?" Noatak murmured a little tentatively and held her close. He was trying to ascertain whether or not it was ok to be happy about the news. "Stress won't help us in this situation, and it's really not the child's fault."

"Uh uh." She agreed, slowly starting to relax to him now that their fears were out in the open and they were both starting to unwind a little.

"Should we tell the children? The boys, I mean." Noatak asked, trying to live in the moment as much as Korra did but not quite managing to keep their worries at bay even if they were both falling into an unspoken agreement to ignore the possible dangers of the situation for the time being.

"Yeah." The Avatar nodded and an honest smile actually graced her lips. "How do you think they'll react?"

"Either with extreme jealousy or with disproportionate excitement." He smiled a little as well because either reaction from the six year olds would be entertaining and they were unpredictable enough that there was no way to know how they would take the news. "I'm sure Nilak would love another sibling though."

"Maybe… Hm… Maybe we should let ourselves be a little excited to?" Korra wondered to herself as much as to him. "Can we?"

"…I'd like that." Noatak nodded and kissed the top of her head, taking in the soothing scent of her hair. "I'd love that more than anything."

"So would I." She admitted in the safety of his arms.


	11. The Boys

"Castaway" Ficlet 11: The Boys

_(for deliriossaborvainilla_

_No idea why I wrote this, someone suggested a birth fic and another person wanted more of the boys so I ended inspired to write this because headcanons (and the last ficlet). This is both filled with family fluff, failed attempts of comic-relief, profanity, a little drama and it's kinda graphic in some points since it's about childbirth. And there's twins, lots of twins._

_Huge one-shot- 8,884k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

As usual Korra had impeccable timing, they were on their way to the South Pole with Nilak when it all started… It was supposed to be their last visit for a while because the Avatar's belly was huge and round and she was supposed to deliver in a month and a half and after that they wouldn't be doing much travelling for some time and Korra was paranoid with the idea that she needed to see her parents before the twins came along.

Noatak understood the urgency- everything had been going well for all intents and purposes, in fact other than the fact that they were surprised by two babies instead of one the whole pregnancy had just been going too well and things going as expected was not something they were used to so Korra was afraid, she was scared that something fatal might happen with this delivery and she wanted to see her parents one last time if it happened… Except she didn't get a chance because their small discreet ship was preparing to dock in the South Pole, still two hours away from the capital city for safety reasons, when the contractions started.

"It's too early… Too damn early!" The Avatar kept hissing out in mingled rage and pain whenever she felt the constricting jab of a contraction. It reminded Noatak eerily of a day when she had said the same words- the day Nilak was born.

A little girl with periwinkle eyes was clinging to his arm shyly as Naga started pulling them along in a sleigh right after they disembarked, the contractions were still quite far apart so they hoped they might make it to the city in time if the polar bear dog really ran.

"Daddy, what's wrong with mama?" Nilak asked a little frightened after a long stretch of silence punctuated only by the Avatar's harsh breathing and the pop of her joints whenever she tried to flex the tension off her limbs.

"She's hurting a little, Nilak." He explained softly. "But she will ok, it's just your little siblings saying it's time to come out."

"They're coming to today?" The six year old brightened up with excitement but just then Korra winced and lurched forward a little breathless, cursing under her breath and attracting Nilak's worried attention. "Does it hurt a lot, mama? Can I help?"

"It's ok. Just… Just be a good girl and do what daddy says, ok?" Korra forced the words out through grit teeth but Nilak refused to move away and started to nervously rub her mother's belly.

"Be good, don't hurt mama." The child admonished towards the Avatar's belly, attempting to lecture the unborn babies inside.

"They aren't doing it on purpose, sweetheart." The masked man pet the girl's hair and instructed her to sit in front of him and watch the snow that was starting to fall around them while he encouraged Korra to breathe and stay calm.

Mother and daughter obeyed but Nilak was obviously too distressed to stay quiet and kept asking what the babies were doing and when they were going to come. Noatak was patient and answered all her questions to the best of his ability while he checked the horizon- they could already see homes dotted around in the white icy landscape of the tundra and the towers of the capital loomed ahead like tiny needles.

"How… How much longer?" Korra asked with a pinched expression, curling in on herself. It wasn't nearly as painful as she had expected and she was used to pain but she was pretty sure she was going to start screaming a string of profanities soon and she didn't want to do it in front of her daughter.

"If we keep up this pace? Around half an hour I think." Noatak replied as calmly as possible. He looked at her and although the mask shielded him, she could see the concern in his pale eyes. "How are you doing so far?"

"I've had worse." She retorted through grit teeth in an attempt to reassure him. Truthfully the pain was just an annoying thrum on her lower back until a contraction came every so often like a stab to her lower abdomen with a rusty blade but even that lasted only a couple of minutes at most, the problem was that the interval between those stabs was shortening at an alarming rate.

"Ok, once we're there it shouldn't be long before we reach the palace. Everything will be alright." He was trying to convince himself and Nilak more than her.

The Avatar nodded and tried to lean back and just breathe out the pain while Nilak once again shot all sorts of awkward questions at her father, apparently the girl was determined to understand the mechanics of childbirth, most likely because she wanted to know exactly what was happening and how she could help- Nilak had always been like that ever since she started to talk but as sweet as it was most days right then it was seriously distracting and a little irritating.

Time dragged on and the snow over them became harsher as the wind picked up, threatening to turn the snowfall into a violent blizzard very fast but Naga wasn't affected by the weather, she seemed to sense the urgency in the air and kept running without letting the wind and snow slow her down, the polar bear dog could probably have moved even faster but that would have meant a bumpy ride and that was the last thing they needed.

"We're almost there, just another few minutes." Noatak announced, now focused on guiding Naga in the right direction towards the royal home.

"Mama? Are you cold?" Nilak asked softly, holding up her travel blanket that she wanted to take off her scrawny shoulder and drape on the woman from the moment she saw Korra tremble but it wasn't the temperature that was making the Avatar shake so she tried to refuse.

"Well, I…" Korra paused her reply and groaned in discomfort as a liquid stain started to appear on her slacks, spreading through the cloth and dripping slightly. "Shit."

Nilak pouted disapprovingly at her mother's potty-mouth and tugged on her father's sleeve, pointing at the stain on the Avatar's clothes, she clearly thought it was something else.

"Your water just broke." There was a note of panic in Noatak's voice when the girl caught his attention.

"Thank you for that brilliant assessment, Captain Obvious!" Korra snapped angrily at him because her mood was souring very quickly- the annoying throb of pain, the constant dread and the fear that they might have a repeat of Nilak's birth were all things that stressed her it became annoying very fast but just then the sleigh jolted as they started moving up the streets towards the palace.

There people everywhere but they were all rushing and scuttling away to hide indoors before the blizzard caught them out in the open. Despite the pain and dread, Korra slouched in her seat and Noatak pulled his hood more securely around his mask, the last thing they needed was for people to start recognizing the Avatar and making a fuss about it when they were in such a hurry.

They were stopped at the palace gates because Noatak looked as suspicious as always but he finally revealed his masked face and announced the Avatar's arrival, begging them to stop delaying and let them get inside and once they were he hoisted Korra out of the sleigh and carried her out, ordering the closest person to go get a healer immediately.

Tonraq and Senna weren't around because the visitors had arrived early but a room was provided at once and in less than five minutes, Noatak was depositing the Avatar in bed and fretting over her though Korra seemed more concerned about Nilak and Naga at that exact moment which was unnecessary because the child had stuck to them like glue and Naga was always well taken care of in the South Pole.

Korra was starting to swear again so Noatak asked Nilak to sit outside by the door and warn them when her grandparents arrived, the girl obeyed albeit reluctantly and as soon as the door closed behind her the Avatar was shouting in pain and frustration.

"Damn it! Oh fuck…!" She took a shaky breath and tried to sit upright. "Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" The last scream punctuated a rather sharp jab that left her breathless and unfortunately it was at that exact moment that Senna walked through the door.

"Korra! What sort of language… Wait, what's…?" The woman started to ask in confusing but saw her daughter hunched over her abdomen with her hair slipping from its tails and perspiration dewing on her brow and everything made sense. "You've called a healer, right?" Senna shot the question at Noatak who was frozen in place next to the bed in obvious anxiety.

"Yes." He replied shakily but with hard won calm. "Her water broke a few minutes ago when we were entering town."

"Alright, my grandbabies are coming." Senna took a breath and although she looked overexcited and hyperactive all of the sudden, she moved closer to her daughter. "Let's get you ready."

Korra didn't argue, she was too busy keeping her cool to make any remarks as her mother stripped her slipped a loose tunic over her before propping her hips over a bunch of pillows and covering her in a warm fuzzy blanket. They were just about done when the Avatar started screaming angry profanities again in complaint towards another contraction.

Noatak started to inch towards the door, he need to breathe before he started running around like a lost little boy, he needed a few quiet moments to calm down before he started panicking and showing weakness; he couldn't show weakness at that moment, not when Korra needed him. He also wanted to check on Nilak out of habit and worry.

"Don't you dare walk out that door, you son-of-a-bitch!" Korra shouted just as his hand reached for the knob.

"I was only going to check for news on the healer." He defended nervously.

"I don't care! You sit your ass right next to me this instant before I…" She hissed as another contraction hit, they were so close now that she could no longer time the intervals between them properly. "Fuck!"

"You alright?" He asked with concern as he promptly and nervously obeyed and sat next to her again.

"I'm in motherfucking labor! What do you think?!" She shouted in his face, totally losing her composure.

"I meant-…" Noatak began but she cut him off.

"I know what you meant!" Korra snapped, swallowing large gulps of air as she forcefully grabbed his hand for comfort. "I want Katara."

"Honey, she's too far. She'll never make it in time." Senna replied softly and kindly, she also neglected to mention that the blizzard was picking up and making any travel impossible so getting the old master would prove considerably hard.

"I want Katara! Or Kya!" The Avatar repeated in a demanding shout. It wasn't just her mood or selfishness, Korra was actually scared something strange might happen so she wanted the best and most trustworthy healer to be there.

"I'll call for them but don't try to wait, let the babies come." Senna instructed and then kissed her daughter's forehead before slipping out of the room to send the message to the elderly Katara and to check on Nilak.

As soon as the older woman was out of the room Korra was screaming and pulling Noatak to her by the collar of his clothes with a lip-curling snarl and sparks on her breath.

"I'm going to fucking kill you for this!" She threatened in considerable pain, any other person would have cowered in fear.

"No, you're not." He dismissed as calmly as he could. He knew she was just venting her pain, well, at least he _hoped_ that was the case and that she wouldn't really hurt him but with Korra one could never be too sure.

"Yes, I am! I hate you!" She growled but the sound ended in a whimper.

"No, you don't. And if you kill me you'll have to change all those diapers by yourself." He pointed out with a touch of edgy humor.

"Shit!" She frowned at the realization that he was right.

"Literally." The masked man chuckled.

"Stop trying to be funny!" She shouted enraged and tried to curl up on herself. "How the hell did I let you talk me into this?!"

"It was your idea!" He objected at once. "You were the one desperate to give Nilak a sibling at all costs."

"You should have talked me out of it, useless jerk!"

"Fine, fine. Yell at me later, right now focus on…" His words were cut off by a rather loud string of profanities spilling out from her mouth.

"As coarse as ever I see." A new male voice spoke from the door. It was Desna, he still looked the same as always to her only taller now that he was in his twenties, actually he was now taller than her and his sister wasn't that far behind either which always made Korra feel small and awkward next to them and that annoyed her because she used to like being the tall one next to them.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Korra shouted in both surprise and frustration.

"Why would we not be present in a most auspicious day for our bloodline, cousin?" A new voice joined, one whose cold bored tone could almost be mistaken with sarcasm.

"We're in the bloody South Pole!" The Avatar snapped back.

"Precisely." Eska deadpanned.

"Just a portal away from home." Desna added.

"How did you even know…?" Korra began.

"To be perfectly honest we came to visit uncle on official business, we just happen to have heard of the situation from aunt Senna." The male twin clarified.

"Mind if we watch?" Eska enquired, already waltzing in and making herself at home. "The birth of twins is relevant to our interests."

"Yes, I mind!" The Avatar gestured angrily at the door. "Get the fuck out! I'm not a circus attraction!"

"Perhaps our cousin feels self-conscious about her current state?" Desna glanced at his sister blankly. "I understand that some women dislike showing their inelegant side in such situations, though considering this is Avatar Korra I believe someone like her would simply dislike showing moments of weakness?"

"There is no need to be insecure, we don't think highly enough of her to care about any spectacle she might put on." Eska replied carelessly.

"I'm right here, you little jerks!" Korra resented that they spoke as if she couldn't hear them.

"If you'd be so kind to wait outside with everyone else, we'd appreciate it." Noatak finally stepped in, he was under the impression that Korra's cousins were trying to distract her from the pain despite their bored demeanor but she was getting a bit too upset and he'd rather avoid seeing her stress levels escalate.

"And here I thought you needed a healer." Eska commented absently, pointing at herself at the same time that Desna pointed at himself as well.

"Since when are you damn healers?" Korra grumbled, gripping Noatak's hand suddenly as a spike of pain caused her to groan and break into a sweat. "You're a fucking two-sided well-oiled war machine."

Eska simply stared in silence but after the Avatar managed to catch her breath the female twin tilted her head as if examining her at a distance and then deigned them with an answer, at least for her part of the matter. "I'm a female, a waterbender and a Northern Water Triber."

It did make sense, in terms of bending Eska and Desna were as far from traditional as humanly possible as far as the North Pole was concerned but Eska was indeed a waterbending princess of the North so it was only expected that she had been trained as a healer and if Eska had done something then it was only natural that Desna had followed the same path and learned the same skills, add to that they were part of the handful of benders that Korra considered the best waterbenders alive it just made sense that they would be the most qualified to help.

"Whatever! I don't care, just go aw-…" Korra didn't finish because she had to grit her teeth against another stab of pain, this one actually tore the breath right out of her and Noatak could hear the crack of his fingers under the force of her grip but didn't dare let go. The contractions were starting to last longer than the intervals between them.

Eska completely ignored the words and approached the bed, flipping up the blanket unceremoniously and forcing the Avatar's legs apart for an educated look at the situation. She didn't seem impressed but she also didn't appear to find anything bad enough that was worth commenting on.

"How do you even live with this?" Desna asked Noatak in a bored monotone as he watched Korra complain and let out yet another litany of profanities that would have made a sailor blush.

"…With patience." Noatak replied, trying to sound more relaxed than he actually felt.

"Noatak!" Korra shouted, pulling him closer again and shaking him angrily. "Do something! It feels like I'm getting fucking mauled by a polar bear from inside out!"

"…Don't exaggerate." The masked man pleaded anxiously although his hand was already over the curve of her belly to ascertain that everything was alright with his sensing, luckily nothing unusual seemed to be happening but the situation was making him sweat behind the mask almost as much as she was.

"I thought after being bloodbent on multiple occasions, facing certain death and having your soul forcefully ripped out of your body, having a child would be trifle for the great Avatar." Eska commented a little scornfully but bent some water from her water-skin and froze it into chips that she guided into her cousin's mouth.

"Shut up! What would you know? You've never had and never will have a kid because you're too much of a scary bitch for anyone to be brave enough to sleep with you!" Korra ranted out in a single breath but she did have to admit to herself that chewing on the ice chips did help soothe her a little and slake her thirst, her throat was pretty parched from all the shouting after all.

"I do not understand the relevance of your retort." The other woman wasn't offended, just vaguely curious and strangely flattered for some reason.

"I believe she is trying to imply that you cannot comprehend her pain by using a demeaning reference to your assumed lack of sexual experience." Desna clarified.

"I see. Well, cousin, such a topic is unrelated to this situation but if you must know I do have suitable experience, I simply have not found the adequate mate to sire offspring with." Eska replied with a slight shadow of a smirk, once again Noatak was under the impression that this whole conversation was a ruse to distract the Avatar from the agony that felt like her inwards attempting to turn inside out.

"HA! I…" Korra hissed and swallowed large gulps of air as another wave of pain passed but the banter was indeed distracting her. "…I can't even begin imagine who'd be crazy enough to sleep with a morose monster queen like you that has her twin on her heels twenty-four hours a day!"

"You'd be surprised, cousin." Desna was the one to reply, usually he would be fiercely protective of his sister and offended by any insult towards her but at that moment he appeared vaguely amused. "I believe your friend Bolin could tell you a story or two in that department."

"How would you know?" Korra snapped at the male twin and then grimaced. "Wait, don't answer. Knowing how you two are, you probably even share sex partners."

"What an amusing assumption on your part." Eska did titter this time and her turtleduck laughter was as disconcerting as ever.

"Aren't you supposed to get angry?! For fucks sake, somebody kick the soulless twins out of here!" The Avatar's remark and obvious frustration actually answered the reason why the twins were not taking offense in the least- they all knew this wasn't really Korra talking, it was the pain that tore down all her verbal filters and replaced them with a prickly need to be belligerent and fight tooth and nail to make everyone as miserable as she felt.

"And here I was enjoying this bonding moment." Eska made no move to actually leave despite her not-so-sarcastic words.

"Yes, despite being kin we always lacked such a basic privilege throughout our infancy." Desna stated with nostalgic look on his usually dreary face.

"Perhaps we should, as the colloquialism puts it, make up for lost time?" The female twin suggested.

"Why would you even… I killed your dad! Why do you insist on talking to me?!" Korra's shouting tone was aggressive and angry and meant to push them away but in reality she was simply confused by them.

"…Eska, am I correct in assuming that our cousin is under the misconception that we still dwell on the matter of that man's demise?" Desna enquired towards his sister, once again they spoke as if nobody else was there.

"Yes, she seems to fear some sort of retaliation." The other retorted a little uninterested.

"I don't fear anything! Not from you!" The Avatar shouted in outrage but it wasn't the anger raising her voice, it was the fact that she was now stuck in a state of repetitive contractions with no interval and the jagged pain was making it hard to breathe and talk without yelling.

"I believe she simply doesn't understand why you'd want to relate to her now." Noatak explained while he combed Korra's hair away from her perspired face with his fingers.

"Sister, would this story be appropriate for such a situation?" Desna asked distantly and this time he was the one to feed Korra some ice chips that she crushed viciously between her teeth.

"Later, Desna. At the moment it seems our next cousin is about ready to make its debut into the world." Eska announced, sitting comfortable at the foot of the bed to assist the delivery.

"No… Not you…" Korra let out the strangled complaint. She wanted another healer, it didn't even have to be Katara, anyone would have done except for Eska but a minute later the thought of refusing just went flying out of her head as she pulled Noatak to her again, now clinging to his arm in bruising grip as the pain escalated the new levels accompanied by the most innerving stretching sensation.

"Korra, breathe." Noatak reminded her that she was holding her breath but did not move away. "Deep breaths, in through the nose and out through…"

"SHOVE YOUR FUCKING BREATHING UP YOUR ASS!" The Avatar bellowed and shook him aggressively, nearly tearing his clothes. "THIS ALL YOUR FAULT! I HATE YOU! WHY DID I LET YOU DO THIS TO ME?!"

"Cousin, please focus on the task at hand." Eska rolled her eyes and smacked the Avatar's knee for attention. "I shouldn't need to say this but you need to push whenever a new contraction comes."

"SHUT UP, DEMON BITCH FROM THE ICE PLANES!" Korra snapped back, shaking Noatak again but screaming at her cousin; nonetheless she did heed the advice and pushed with each wave of pain even though her body didn't really let her do otherwise anyway.

"My, my, her insults get more intriguing with each passing minute." Desna remarked.

"GO SUCK ON A GREASEBERRY BRAMBLE, SQUINTY EYED BASTARD!" The Avatar shot at the male twin with equal rage before she tossed her head back and just shouted nothing in particular with her back arching as she pushed with all her might.

"Breathe." Noatak murmured close to her and caressed her abdomen both for comfort and to make sure nothing was going wrong. "Breathe, it will all be over soon. You'll be ok, I promise."

"I hate you! Spirits, I fucking hate you right now!" Korra tried to shout but the words came out in desperate whimpers, she was panting heavily and on the verge of tears, clinging tighter to him than ever. "Help me… Don't let go…"

"I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere." The masked man assured her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders for support. "No matter how much you shoo me away."

She screamed again, roared actually, her hair was sticking to her perspired face and flickers of flame were sparking from her breath, even the walls themselves seemed to tremble slightly for a second.

"Head is out. Just one more long push." Eska instructed bluntly, there was a glow of water on her hands and she appeared to be using water-healing to try and make things easier.

"You can do this, just a little more." Noatak encouraged but Korra was panting and shaking her head in despair.

"I… I can't! It hurts!" She whined, practically burning his hand as hers heated up with uncontrolled firebending. He never even flinched though, not wanting to distract her.

"Yes, you can. You are the Avatar and you've survived worse." He traced her thigh slowly and gently, caressing the tattoo there, the reminder of her strength. "You've conquered much greater pain, I know you can do this."

Korra took a deep shaky breath and the nodded mutely and unwilling, gritting her teeth while her face twisted with visceral pain and sweat dripped down her skin and stained her tunic. She rode the next wave of agony with a muffled roar, pushing and tensing so much that the room shook from wayward bending again.

At last the shrieking cries of an infant pierced the air and the Avatar sagged, panting rapidly and closing her eyes for a moment to try to recover her bearings. Noatak murmured that it was over and he was proud of her as he rubbed her shoulders quietly but his burned hand stung and his nerves were jittery, he also kept trying to sneak a peek at the baby that Eska seemed to be tending to with water-healing and simple waterbending alike- never would Noatak have imagined that someday he'd be so glad to have a bender tend to his loved ones, it still often gave him mixed feelings to see casual unnecessary bending, then again he hadn't expected to fall in love with the Avatar either.

"The infant is male." Eska stated dully and handed the baby to her brother who wrapped the child in warm grey cloth. "Quite healthy as well."

Desna moved over to them and handed the shrieking baby unceremoniously to Noatak since Korra was still shaky and catching her breath, he then stepped back and watched them with vague interest while Eska appeared to merely wait for the next round.

Noatak accepted the boy, albeit nervously and with clammy trembling hands, and looked at his firstborn son that he held securely in his arms.

This baby was completely different from what he remembered Nilak being- he was bigger, plump and rosy with plenty of hair and dark skin. It took a minute but as he rocked and murmured the child slowly stopped wailing and calmed down just enough to allow a more careful examination, the boy was Korra's spitting image down the last detail or at least so it seemed for now, only the eyes were impossible to determine since they were still firmly shut against the light.

"Take that thing off." Korra croaked out the sulky demand, gesturing at Noatak's face and accepting more ice chips from one of the twins, sucking on them tiredly as she looked up at Noatak. "How… How is he?"

"He's just like you, therefore he is perfect." The former equalist announced as he slipped off the mask he had forgotten he was wearing to reveal a wobbly smile, he refused to show it but he was on the verge of tears and had to clear his throat quickly to hide emotion in his voice as he glanced back down at the little boy.

"Show me." She raised her hands making greedy grabby motions to reach the baby and ignoring the dull pain still throbbing in her lower body.

Noatak chuckled and placed the child in her lap, uncovering the cloth that so they could examine every inch of the infant and make sure everything was as it should be. Korra appeared to be fascinated with the boy's little toes and fingers and traced his tiny nose with a tired smile.

"Worth the effort." The Avatar chuckled and swaddled the child carefully.

"I must say I agree with your companion. This infant certainly does bear a striking resemblance to you." Desna commented casually, glancing at the boy. "Do you have a name yet?"

"Actually…" Korra trailed off and snarled, handing the child back to his father before she started to instinctively curl into herself as much as she could. "Shit, it's starting again."

"Yes, it is." Eska agreed with a small amount of interest, she appeared to find Korra's suffering and rage mildly amusing in this setting. "Considering the lack of an expelled placenta and the shortness of this interval I believe it's safe to announce that your twins will be identical."

"Unlike us." Desna added automatically and inexpressively even though neither Noatak nor Korra had ever seen two people more identical than Eska and Desna, if it were not for their genders and the recent minor changes in bone structure in the last few years nobody would ever be able to tell them apart.

Korra cringed at the unnecessary details and at the half-sore and half-soggy sensation she had below the waist but she nodded and chose to forfeit a reply so she could focus on breathing and preparing herself for a second round of torture, it helped that Noatak had let Desna set take the baby while he returned to rubbing her shoulders in an attempt to kneed away some of the strain growing in her body all over again.

«Please let this one come faster.» She thought with rising panic. «Please let it be normal too.»

"You're forgetting to breathe again." Noatak admonished softly in her ear, gently pulling her hair away from her face and pinning it back.

"Shut up, I know that!" Korra barked with renewed anger, forcing herself to suck in a breath as another stab of pain lacerated her body from the inside out.

"I'm just trying to help." He defended and offered some ice chips himself just to appease her. "Do you need anything?"

"I need you to stop mothering me!" She spat but accepted the ice and chewed on it indignantly, she was more irritated by his nervous concern than by any actual action. "It's irritating, you sound like…" She trailed off as she remembered Nilak, who often got overbearing enough in her worry to talk non-stop and grind her mother's gears.

"Korra? Are you alright?" Noatak asked when she froze mid-sentence.

"Nilak. Where's Nilak? Why hasn't anyone else come yet?" She asked in sudden dread, panicking for no reason other than her shaky nerves.

"They are all waiting outside, cousin." Desna explained. "You were so busy screaming that you completely disregarded the matter and never let us explain that we took responsibility for helping you, we are quite confident in our skills and we were the closest competent healers after all so aunt Senna entrusted us with the task."

"Yes, too many people in a birthing room is always a mess." Eska added sullenly. "In fact, he shouldn't be in here either." She gestured at Noatak.

"He stays!" Korra snapped at once, clinging to the former equalist and pulling him close with such sudden force that he stumbled clumsily and fell onto the bed with her.

"I wasn't suggesting otherwise." The female twin appeared unaffected. "Merely commenting on the unorthodox nature of the situation."

"Korra, calm down." Noatak pried her hand from him arm and held it gently. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You better not because I will murder you if you so much as set a foot out that door!" The Avatar threatened with a snarl and her eyes closed when her body started to mechanically push with the jagged stab of agony whether she liked it or not. At least she was getting her wish- this birth was moving at a much faster rate than the previous one.

"Yes, yes, we've been through this already." He smiled softly and caressed her hair with the hand that wasn't clutched in hers and that then rested on her belly, still making sure everything was alright. "If you kill me you'll be up to your elbows in diapers and baby spittle with no one to help you."

Korra made a sound that could have been sarcastic laughter but wobbled down into pained sobs, she was starting to lack the energy to hurtle insults and just remembering to breathe was sapping away her strength, not to mention that the contractions were now coming in a permanent loop that merely gave her seconds of interval between them, seconds that were precious to catch her breath because the rest of the time she was pushing and grunting so hard without sucking in enough air to the point that black spots starting dancing in her eyesight.

"Don't rush it." Eska bossed in her usual monotone.

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, BITCH!" The Avatar snapped and screamed breathlessly.

Eska was right though- the kid was coming faster but, impatient as she was, she was trying to rush it anyway because she could feel her energy sapping away and she was afraid she would run out of steam halfway. The mere thought of how tired she felt made her panic and if she had been breathing shallowly before then now she was outright gasping and unable to get any air amidst the fear and excruciating ache.

"Korra." Noatak tried to grab her attention because he could feel her terror as well as her heartbeat slowing rather than speeding in response to it, all because she was starting to black out from lack of oxygen. "Korra! Breathe, damn it." He ordered a bit too harshly but it got through to her.

She wanted to pant in short rapid spurts but he forced her to take slower deep breaths and to stop trying to rush the push, the Avatar obeyed grudgingly until the dark clouds on her vision cleared up and she noticed the glow of water-healing in Eska's hands again.

She wanted to yell at them all and make them understand how awful she felt, she wanted to attack them and vent all that torture and rage- Desna for just standing watching with that irritating blank expression, Noatak for getting her pregnant in the first place and now looking so anxious when she needed him to be a rock, and Eska for just because she was the crazy Spirits-damned Eska and got her on Korra's nerves for every reason. And yet even though she had all the insults lined up in her head she didn't have enough strength to think properly and articulate the words and ended up just screaming for the sake of screaming with her tense body arching and lurching forward with each push.

"Last stretch. One more push, Korra." Noatak said in her ear, she was aware that Eska was speaking too but her own pained cries were drowning out any words that were spoken from more than a foot away.

"FUCK YOU!" She snarled out. "FUCK… I think I'm dying…" She gasped out, trying to gather just enough strength for that final shove as tears streamed down her face though for once she didn't care that she was crying.

"No, you're not." The former equalist corrected strictly, he wiped away the tears and pat her cheek when she started to sag again and nearly faint again. "I know you're tired but it's almost over, just a little more and then you can rest all you want."

"That's…easy…for you…to say…" She forced the words out through grit teeth, unconsciously fighting the instinct to push. "You're not…the one forcing…two humans out…of your body…"

"No, I'm not and I respect you immensely for having the strength and courage to do this." He assured with urgency and raw sincerity in every word. "But I swear you'll be alright, just hang on a little longer and once this is over we'll have two beautiful children and I'll do anything you want."

"…Anything?" She hissed out the word dangerously, already gulping down a huge swallow of air and blinking away more tears as she accepted the incentive.

"Anything whatsoever." Noatak promised.

Korra nodded, because she didn't have time to answer- she didn't even think about it and just exerted all her remained energy in the last long grueling push, ignoring the way sparks danced around her skin and Noatak's fingers cracked under her grip once more. She held her breath again but only stopped when the high-pitched wails of the second baby rang through the air and her body gave up on her completely and slumped down onto the bed; there was still pain, there was still a nagging pinch on her lower abdomen as her body attempted to expel whatever afterbirth remained but after all that agony it felt like nothing more than minor discomfort and all her muscles relaxed suddenly so that she felt boneless and nearly paralyzed with exhaustion.

"As expected, you have another son." Eska confirmed as she finished cleaning and check up on the shrieking infant before she turned to water-heal the Avatar while Desna wrapped the baby and handed it over to Noatak.

They had been right, the second baby was exactly like his brother in every way, like two carbon copies of one another, the only difference Noatak could find was that the second one seemed smaller but only by a very tiny margin that was easy to overlook, he was also louder.

Nonetheless he couldn't stop staring at the child because the little male miniature version of Korra was simply too stunning and perfect in every way and made him want to hug the child to his chest and never let go and yet he was overwhelmed by the simple fact that these children were his, they were his _sons_, the children he had never even dreamed of having but that completed him and filled him with glee and pride like no other as well as the terrified dread of failing them in some way... And he was pretty sure Korra felt the exact same way.

"Noatak?" Korra called out tiredly and he remembered that she hadn't seen their second son yet.

He carried the child to her and set it on her lap before helping her prop herself up with pillows because she was too exhausted to sit on her own. To him she looked beautiful, even flushed and panting, even perspired and with tangled hair sticking out in odd angles, even shaky and weak and having spewed all sorts of obscenities and insults, the twenty-four year old Avatar looked perfect and glowing in his eyes.

The second boy was still wailing but Korra didn't seemed to mind and traced every corner of him with complete fascination while Noatak picked up the now quiet first boy and brought him over as well so they could look at them together.

"They really are identical." Korra murmured hoarsely, sucking on more ice chips one of her cousins supplied. "How will we ever tell them apart?"

"And beautiful." Noatak added before he answered her question. "We will manage somehow."

"Do I know how to cook 'em or what?" She Avatar bragged, petting both babies with pride.

"They are indeed satisfactory to carry our family heritage." Eska commented approvingly.

"You've done well, cousin." Desna complimented and Korra was pretty sure it was the first time she ever got a compliment from either cousin.

"Er… Thanks?" She was so surprised that she didn't know whether to feel touched or irked. She chose the former. "And thank you for helping."

"Yes, you have our gratitude." Noatak stated as well.

"I still don't get why you're being so nice to me." Korra muttered. "It's just because I had twins like you are, isn't it?"

"I believe it's time for that story?" Desna looked at his sister after a brief pause.

"An abbreviated form perhaps." Eska concurred with a curt nod.

"Cousin, as children we were never allowed to interact with you because your parents feared our father would use any relationship we struck up to his advantage, they feared father would attempt to reach you through us. We were also isolated from other children since not many were allowed around the royal twins and our father raised us strictly and with an iron fist, our only moments of pleasant and totally free interaction with people of the same age were our rare letters to you and the vague hellos at festivals." Desna explained in a relaxed monotone. Korra was sure he had never spoken so much in one go before.

"In short we may not be the most socially perceptive or extroverted people but we do appreciate you, otherwise we would never even acknowledge you as kin." Eska added as if it were stupidly obvious.

"And now that our father is gone and we are free to do as we please we would certainly enjoy the chance to bond with what family we have left, particularly the only one in our generation." Desna stated with a pointed stare at the Avatar.

"You." Eska explained unnecessarily.

"You always were pretty different in your letters… A lot less formal and definitely less annoying." Korra mused, being so tired and exhilarated was tearing down her defenses. She had always wondered which was the most honest side of the twins- the spoken one or the written one. "So… You want to be my friends?"

"Family." Eska corrected.

"We already are family." The Avatar rolled her eyes.

"No, we are related by blood. That and actual acceptance within a _family_ appear to be very different things." Desna replied.

"Or so we are told by uncle Tonraq." Eska completed for her brother.

"I guess if you can still like me after what I did to your dad then I can forgive you for trying to kill me that one time… And for being so annoying… And creepy…" Korra trailed off awkwardly, too tired to be stubborn and too grateful after these two helped her in such a delicate situation to actually argue.

"Make no mistake- we do not plan on changing for your convenience, we merely want the chance to interact with you and yours and in turn we will overlook your own inadequacies." Eska retorted haughtily but a lot less coldly.

"I guess that's family… Gotta get along when we can, flaws and all." The Avatar shrugged, still focused on her sons while immersed in the conversation.

"I'd say that sums the situation." Desna agreed.

"The children have quieted, shall we give the others the news?" Eska changed the subject, pointing at the door.

"Yeah, I guess." Korra nodded.

"Do they have names yet?" The female twin enquired, hoping to announce the boys by their proper names.

"Actually we never managed to reach a consensus on the matter." Noatak picked up the explanation where Korra had left off earlier. Truth be told, there had been a few rowdy fights over the name picking this time, everyone seemed to have an opinion and nobody seemed to agree with one another- Korra and Noatak had actually had a shouting match because a friendly discussion about the names spiraled rather stupidly out of control.

"Any suggestions?" The Avatar asked, hoping she wouldn't regret giving her cousins the opening… Well, maybe this was the olive branch they need to make peace for good.

Eska and Desna delayed announcing the birth for a moment and approached the bed to examine the newborns intently, they were silent for a long time as they stared at the squirming babies and then exchanged a look between themselves.

"Kalle." Eska named, pointing at the first boy since she was a firstborn twin herself.

"Korei." Desna suggested without a shadow of a doubt, pointing at the second baby.

"Huh." The Avatar made a surprised sound and tested the names for a moment, rolling them on her tongue. "Kalle… Means 'strong man', right? And Korei… Not sure what it means but it sounds kinda like my name. I actually like these."

"Korei means 'trickster' or 'fox Spirit', referring to the seekers of knowledge." Desna explained briefly.

"I do like the sound of those names as well, they are much better than our previous options." Noatak offered his input, perhaps the matter could be settled without yet another argument and since it was an outside suggestion there was no need for any side to fight for the privilege of naming the boys.

"Shall we go with those?" Korra looked up at her lover with a tired smile, she was too exhausted to think too deeply about this.

"We promised Nilak she could help chose." He reminded her softly.

"Alright, let's see what she thinks of these names then." She nodded and turned to her cousins. "Could you call her?"

Eska and Desna nodded and once again headed for the door, they stepped outside quietly and as blank as always but before they could speak a loud and frantic familiar voice was addressing them.

"Eska, Desna! You've been in there forever and the screaming stopped long ago. What the hell is going on?!" Tonraq appear to be half-panicked and had been pacing the hallway for some time now.

"Fear not, uncle. You have two healthy grandsons." Desna announced.

"I do?" Tonraq's tone changed into dumbfounded excitement at once but when Senna cleared her throat he corrected himself- "I mean, _we_ do?"

"Everything went well?" Senna asked hopefully.

"There was a complicated moment at some point but there is nothing negative to remark on. It was a successful birth." Eska replied vaguely while Desna spotted Nilak sitting on the floor just outside the door and playing nervously with something in her hands.

"Little cub, your parents are calling for you." The male twin crouched down to speak to the child and Nilak perked up at once and scrambled to her feet, making a dash for the room before anyone could stop her.

"Mama! Daddy!" The little girl tried to fling herself onto the bed but Noatak caught her in time to stop the move and picked her up as if she were no heavier than a snowflake.

"Careful, darling." He admonished the child softly. "Mama is still sore, no roughhousing."

"Daddy, is mama ok now? She looks sick. Are you sick, mama?" Nilak's attention ping-ponged between her parents, demanding answers before she caught a glimpse of the children on her mother's lap. "Are those the babies?"

"Mama is just tired. I promise I just need to rest." Korra answered the first question with a drowsy smile.

"And yes, those are your baby brothers." Noatak added in reply to the other query. He set her down on the edge of the bed so she could see the boys.

"Can I hold them?" The six year old begged expectantly.

"Not yet, sweetheart, they are too small. But you can pet them." The scarred man exemplified by petting her long braided hair tenderly.

Nilak pouted but she did carefully pet the little chubby cheeks of the boys with a curious touch. "They look the same."

"They are identical twins, they are supposed to look the same." Her father explained lightly.

"Will they be like cousin Eska and cousin Desna? Will they dress and act the same too?" Nilak looked intensely curious and nodded at the Avatar's cousins that were still at the door giving Senna and Tonraq a summary of the delivery in order to stall them for a while so Nilak could bond with her siblings.

"We don't know, darling. That's up to them, they might even grow up to act completely different from one another." Noatak stated with a smile.

"Or not." Korra chuckled but placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Nilak, we need your help."

"Yes, mama?" The girl blinked her huge droopy lilac eyes with abject curiosity.

"Eska and Desna chose some nice names for the babies but we want to know if you like them." The Avatar pointed at the boys for emphasis.

"What names?" Nilak appeared to snap into a cute sort of business mode at once, she took the matter very seriously.

"Kalle and Korei."

"Um…" Nilak pursed her lips with a hand on her chin as she thought, her brows scrunched into a little V that was quite like Korra's focused expression. "Ummmm….. Yes, I like. Can I call them Kal and Rei?"

"If you want." Korra nodded.

"Hello, Kal and Rei. I'm Nilak and I'm your big sister." The girl stood on the bed to look down at the two baby boys, shielding them from the light in the room, she spoke cheerfully and tickled the palms of their little hands because she was just as fascinated by the tiny fingers as Korra was.

"I guess they have names." The Avatar grinned at Noatak and he smiled back with a short nod of agreement.

The former equalist felt like the smile had been stapled on his face and he could not get it off because it had become, without a doubt, the happiest day of his life and nothing was able to shadow that joy.

"I made this for them." Nilak jiggled two braided suede bracelets, one was indigo and the other was mottled cobalt. That had been how she had spent her time while sitting outside the door with her grandparents.

"Oh, look." Korra chuckled at Noatak and nodded at the little gifts. "A way to tell them apart."

The bracelets were too big so the Avatar helped the six year old make anklets out of them instead- the indigo one for Kalle's left ankle and the cobalt one for Korei's right. Nilak looked immensely proud of her work and Korra kissed the girl's cheek lovingly with a tender thank you.

"Look, mama, they have eyes like daddy." The girl announced suddenly, by shielding the boys from the light of the chandelier she had encouraged them to open their eyes a little and although they had the same chatoyant eye-shape as Korra, they did indeed have very pale ice blue irises though flecked by miniscule dots of amber around the pupil.

"So they do have a little Noatak in them!" Korra smirked teasingly. "Oh well, it will have to do."

"Is that a complaint I hear?" Noatak sat close to her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist. He had never liked his eyes because they were too much like his father's but if he could associate them to his sons instead then he was pretty sure he could learn to love the trait very quickly.

"Maybe. What are you gonna do about it?" She stuck out her tongue playfully and leaned into the embrace.

"Always cheeky, my little Avatar." Noatak took the cue and, as had become their unique habit, he captured her tongue between his lips and kissed her lovingly.

"Ew… Look, Kal, Rei, mama and daddy do that a lot so don't be afraid of the oogies." Nilak whispered at the boys that were just looking around clueless and starting to fuss.

Korra had to break the kiss because she burst out laughing at the child's icky tone and couldn't remain serious, as for Noatak her leaned to Nilak and kissed her nose, calling her jealous and watching her pout again.

"Where are my grandbabies? Let me see my boys!" Tonraq finally managed to burst into the room when Senna had all the information she wanted and the twins had no way to stall further, or the interest to do so anyway.

"Right here, Chief." Korra called with a smile and repositioned the chubby little boys in her lap. "Meet Kalle and Korei."

"Korra, they look just like you!" Senna pointed out happily with a nostalgic smile.

"Which is why they are so adorable." Tonraq's first reaction was to gape and then to grin with pride and hug his daughter in congratulations.

"Of course." The Avatar replied smugly, hugging back before she let the man pick one of the babies up while her mother took the other.

"Getting a little conceited, aren't you, my love?" Noatak chuckled and leaned close to nuzzle her neck affectionately while Nilak sat on his lap. He also whispered in his lover's ear. "Thank you… They are perfect."

"I earned it." Korra replied cockily but smiled at his murmured remark and looked at him with drowsy eyes while everyone else swooned over the babies. "Speaking of which, about that promise to do anything I say…"

~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~

_(Author's Note: I'm aware that in real life most babies are born with blue eyes and only acquire the real permanent hue of their irises after a few months but that does not seem to be the case in the Avatar Universe so I am disregarding this fun fact._

_Also, Anningan and Malina are still Noatak's apprentices at this point and are delighted by the news of another set of twins to relate to.)_


	12. Bully

"Castaway" Ficlet 12: Bully

_(Here's one-shot that hits pretty close to home for me and probably for a lot of people. _

_Includes childhood bullying, drama, angst, family fluff and possible spoilers._

_7,528k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

Something was wrong, she was sure of it but Korra couldn't possibly figure out what it was.

Pema, Tani, Jinora, Skoochy, Mako and even Bolin, all of them being Nilak's babysitters more often than not, had already pointed out that something was different but Korra couldn't understand what was going on, each of them claimed that the little four year old was acting distracted and melancholic in past couple of weeks and the day before when Skoochy took her to the playground he returned claiming that Nilak had played alone all the time she was there and Korra didn't really believe that until she saw it.

She brought her daughter to the park and the playground herself that afternoon after a particularly boring meeting with the Council that now operated as a court under the president and not as a ruling power. Nilak always loved the playground, she wasn't exactly extroverted but as a paradox she was naturally easygoing and made friends with most children effortlessly so she got excited every time she had a chance to leave the island and play with the city kids in the large sandy playground near the city park which was precisely why Korra found it odd that the girl now seemed happier to go out with her than she seemed about playing with the other children.

Skoochy had been right, the whole hour Korra sat back on the grass with Naga Nilak played alone and not just that- she left her trusted polar dog plushy with her mother 'for safe keeping'. The girl chose a spot under the slides and built sandcastles the whole time, bending klutzy globs of water from the drinking fountain to wet the sand; she purposely shied away from a couple of other kids and even refused a turn at the swings which were her favorite thing in the whole playground. The Avatar didn't like that, Nilak had always been like her when it came to making friends, blunt and magnetic, and now suddenly she was acting shy and nervous and Korra couldn't figure out why or when the change had happened.

A little boy approached the girl, he was older with olive skin and incredibly short hazel hair. He talked but his body language was mocking, he poked at her but Nilak ignored him completely, the boy didn't like it and pulled her hair when another child, a bob haired pale girl, joined in. Korra got up and tried to see what was going but it was hard with people walking by and getting in the way and she didn't want to come closer because unlike her overprotective lover she believed Nilak had to learn to fend for herself; however, she did notice that the other parents, especially the women that she was sure were the mothers of the children speaking to Nilak, were on the other end of the playground, sitting together and probably gossiping like that had been when she arrived and passed them by, the ladies never even glanced at the kids.

Someone got in her way and when the person moved Korra saw Nilak lying on the sand before quickly getting up with a frown but she was still silent… And then the boy was holding something that Korra was sure was Nilak's bracelet above his head and he squashed her sandcastles under his feet, the other kids joined and laughed but Nilak's face went from scowling angrily to falling and becoming on the verge of tears.

Korra knew the girl wouldn't cry, it wasn't easy to make Nilak cry because she was too much like her father but the Avatar herself felt her blood boil and she decided it was the right moment to intervene, unfortunately she didn't have time to make good on that decision.

Nilak said something softly with a wobbly pout on her lips and tried to reach the bracelet the other held, she caught it but as a result the boy suddenly shoved her yet she held her ground and refused to react to the bait, she turned her back and tried to stride over to Naga but the boy grabbed her by her hair and pulled her back along with the other girl and Nilak had to shake them off and then… A crowd of passing tourists got in the way and Korra had to go around them to try and get to her daughter but by the time she actually stepped into the playground the kids were huddled in a circle and she heard Nilak shout; when she managed to get passed all the little excitable little balls of energy she found her daughter struggling on the floor while the other boy pinned her down and smacked her repeatedly, clutching her own beaded bracelet in his hand.

Nilak wasn't hitting back, she was trying to avoid physical contact at all costs and just tried to unsuccessfully dodge with a snarl on her face, attempting to push the other back and regain her bracelet that had been a gift from the airbenders and that she wore ever since before she could remember. Korra was about to pull them apart when the boy rose a hand for a punch and Nilak finally struck as fast as a viper-bat, hitting his torso just below his arm so that it fell limp and chi-blocked which allowed her to use her scrawny little legs to kick him off and turn the tables pushing him down face first on the sand and pinning his working arm behind his back thus regaining her wristlet. Korra was actually impressed and that froze her for a second, she had no idea that her daughter could do that but assumed that watching Noatak practice chi-blocking had taught the four year old much.

A woman shrieked and broke the Avatar's daze, she swooped down to gather Nilak in her arms and pulled away just as the boy's mother started running over, the kid himself was sitting up with a sulky angry expression and about to throw a tantrum but as soon as he saw his mother he started to whine in an obviously fake show of fear.

"Sowwy…" Nilak still wasn't crying but she curled to Korra and clung to her for dear life, probably afraid to get into trouble for fighting and unable to pronounce any R's.

"It's ok, baby. Not your fault." The Avatar tried to soothe her and pet her hair, noticing that it was saturated with sand and a chunk of it appeared to have been literally pulled out by the roots, her dress was also ripped up in the back.

"The hell it isn't!" The boy's mother, a primed middle-aged lady with tight hazel curls, an emerald green qipao and greyish brown eyes, picked up her son and shouted back at Korra in outrage. "I just about had enough of that little pest."

"Excuse me?" The Avatar shot back with an immense strain on her self-control.

"Nothing but trouble, that one! Every day she starts something, acting like she's too good to play with the others and getting into fights all the time." The woman snarled and Korra thought she looked distinctly like an overgrown hoghound puppy trying to growl. "No wonder she comes with a different person each day, I doubt anyone even wants to be around such a brat for long." The lady continued in an angry tirade. "Or perhaps she just has a reckless mother that can't take care of her own kid and gets others to do it for her."

"Listen, lady, I'm just about done with your shit." Korra spat back, restraining from getting physical herself only because she was holding Nilak. "Your little punk started it, my kid was just playing peacefully by herself and he started picking on her!" She pointed at the boy that immediately started to sob in the most exaggerated way into his mother's chest. "Then again you wouldn't know that, would you? Since you were too busy gossiping by your greengrocer's butt and fixing your mane to so much as watch your own son."

"How dare you?!" The woman shouted in total outrage and pointed at the boy she held, particularly at the limp arm! "Look at what that freakish little pest did to him! Poor boy is crying! Look at his arm, it's probably broken!"

"It's just chi-blocked, dumbass. He'll go back to normal in a few minutes." Korra glanced at boy who just sobbed louder. "And anyone can see those are crocodeer tears."

"As if a child could chi-block! And you call my son a liar?" The lady hissed back angrily.

"That and a bully." The Avatar retorted loudly. "He's probably the reason my daughter started playing alone in the first place."

"How would you know, you're never even here with her!" The woman examined Korra from head to toe, looking down on her and sneering rather disdainfully. "Figures."

"Figures? What's that supposed to mean?" She challenged the other to reply.

"What were you? Fourteen? Fifteen?" The lady made a disgusted face, wrinkling her nose at the tomboyish twenty-two year old Avatar. "No wonder the brat has such bad manners when the mother is probably some bratty teenage slut."

"WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!" Korra shouted in absolute fury, with sparks dancing in her breath.

"Mama…" Nilak whimpered from the loud yelling right next to her ears and the overly tight grip she was held in though she was more distressed about being the cause of the argument than about the screaming itself.

"Sorry, baby." The Avatar apologized softly, hugging her daughter and taking a breath before she growled a retort at the arrogant woman. "For your Spirits-damned information I was eighteen and my life is none of your damn business, neither is it relevant to the fact that your son is a bully and a liar and I demand an apology."

"I'm not apologizing to a rude girl like you! Especially with that mouth on you!" The lady seemed to be appalled by the other's cursing and her son blew raspberries at the Avatar.

"I don't care about me, I want your kid to apologize for hurting my daughter! He stole her bracelet, he hit her, he ripped her hair out, for crying out loud! I want him to stay away from her permanently!" Korra demanded in pure blind fury, she had never hit a child before but for this boy she wanted to open an exception, or at least scare him shitless.

"Yes, well I want your kid out of this playground permanently." The woman scoffed.

"And who the hell are you to say that?!" Korra was near yelling again. "It's public property, we can be here whenever we want!"

"Listen here, little slut, I…" The lady was suddenly cut off by another woman with long raven hair in a plait who placed her hand on the other's slim shoulders with an air of distress.

"Manda, how about we end this here?" The black haired lady had an almost childishly sweet voice but it was low and nervous. "You're causing a scene and I don't think you know who you're dealing with."

"Yeah, I don't think she knows either." Korra retorted, still angry and fighting the urge to break something.

"I don't care who you are, that child is a menace and her presence disturbs the peace. We want her out and if you keep bringing her around…" Manda started the threat but let it hang and that wouldn't do, if one wanted to threaten the Avatar then in Korra's opinion that person sure as hell better be ready to follow through.

"What? What will you do?" Korra challenged darkly. "Say it. I dare you."

The sand was trembling and rumbling under the Avatar's feet, an aggressive gust of wind was blowing past her right onto the onlookers, flipping clothes, blowing sand and whipping hairs, flickers of flame danced over her hands and burned out before they could affect the little girl in Korra's arms.

"What in the world…?" The belligerent woman was suddenly stunned and stumbled back on the quivering sand.

"Manda, she's the Avatar." The raven head piped in a little frightened and two other women started to whisper and tried to discourage the one named Manda as well.

"Ava…" The woman didn't even finish the word, she was too stunned and the boy had stopped pretending and was staring at the Avatar in awe.

"Yeah, I'm the Avatar, bitch." Korra snapped rudely. "Now say it- what will you do if we keep showing up and using public property?"

"You're the Avatar? So what? Am I supposed to bow now?" Manda composed herself quickly and once again sneered but then something appeared to click in her mind and she glared. "Wait, that explains it! That's Amon's brat."

"So what?" Korra's angry loud tone simmered down into something overly soft and dangerous, she could practically feel the heat about to burst out of her- the woman was really walking on thin ice now just by bringing up that name.

"So that explains why none of the children like her and I think I speak for everyone when I say nobody wants their kids playing with the bloodbender's freakish brood." Manda put her son on the floor and stood protectively in front of him with her arms crossed.

"I swear if I wasn't holding my daughter I'd show you that you're afraid of the wrong parent here." The Avatar practically growled and the ground was rumbling audibly now, a fire hydrant was also starting to leak under pressure along with the drinking fountain as the water was attracted to Korra. She didn't remember a time when she was more furious and lacking in self-control, at least not in years and not without fear dampening the rage.

"What do want to do Avatar Korra? Take my bending? I don't have any. Use your influence to kick us out? I'd love to see you try. Beat me up? Go ahead, show everyone the brutes you and your brat are." The woman dared and a couple of others took her side but many more were just backing away quickly and refusing to take sides or get involved, some were on Korra's side too but were to scared of her wrath to stick around.

Korra wanted to, she really did want to break the woman's perfect sharp nose in and she believed she would be perfectly justified in doing so but Nilak was still clinging to her and starting to hiccup in her arms so rather than get violent she raised her fingers to her lips and whistled. Nilak flinched at the loud, sharp high-pitched noise and in two seconds flat Naga had leaped onto the sand and was barking and growling ferociously enough to make the women scream and squeal before they grabbed their children and ran away shrieking in terror, Manda herself fell flat on her rear screaming and grabbed her son again before stumbling away and ripping her fancy emerald dress to the hip in the process.

"Let's go, Naga." The Avatar turned on her heels and walked away fuming.

She stopped on the edge of the playground where all the kids left their shoes so they could play barefoot on the sand but couldn't find Nilak's until Naga sniffed them out buried in the sand and completely ripped apart.

"Hey, Nini, do you know which shoes belong to that boy and the other girl that pulled you?" Korra asked softly, now frowning from the further evidence of bullying.

The little girl peeked shyly out of her chest and pointed at a pair of brown moccasins and some pretty pink sandals that Korra picked up unceremoniously while everyone was still running from the polar bear dog.

"You sure it's these?" The Avatar asked and Nilak nodded. "Alright, don't ever do what I'm about to, ok?" Korra warned calmly, not wanting to be a bad example but doing a poor job at it.

She tossed the shoes over the highest tree she could see, using airbending to make sure they'd be stuck up there for a long while, it wasn't nearly gratifying enough as revenge and it was petty and childish but it made her feel a little better before she walked off into the park with her daughter and her furry friend until they were well away from everybody, she then sat on the grass by the creek that crossed the park and let the child settle in her lap.

"Nilak? Look at mama, sweetie." Korra pleaded but the girl still had her face buried in the Avatar's chest. "Please, Nini."

"I want daddy." The girl demanded in a shaky voice, refusing to show her face. Of course she'd ask for Noatak, Nilak always wanted him.

"I know you do and we'll go get him in a bit, just listen to me for a minute, ok?" The Avatar pet her daughter's hair, carefully brushing the knotted mass of it with her fingers. "Look, I even have Mingan here for you if you let me look at you. Do you want Mingan?" She held up the polar dog plushy that the child loved so much and it seemed to have some effect.

It took some coaching but the girl finally looked at her mother who realized she had been wrong- Nilak was indeed crying, she was just doing so silently with her droopy periwinkle eyes looking red-rimmed and overflowing with tears, the left side of her cheek was also starting to bruise and there were scratches across it plus she had a lump on her head and her lower lip was cracked and bleeding lightly right down the middle, her palms and knees were also scrapped. The sight nearly brought Korra to tears herself.

"Let's fix this, shall we?" The Avatar let the girl hug her toy, took a steadying breath and bent water from the creek and onto her hands until it started glowing pale blue.

Nilak didn't move as her mother water-healed but she didn't look at Korra either and kept sniffling and crying through the whole process of having the soothing liquid caress her wounds and help them knit back together and fade away.

"Nini…" Korra hesitated, those tears were squeezing her heart. "Have the kids here been doing this a lot?"

Nilak didn't answer but her downcast eyes filled with even more tears and Korra was having hard time focusing on healing when she just wanted to hold the girl, she held back though just to ensure that the lump in her head was gone and the scratches faded before she moved on to the lip and the scrapes on her hands.

"We don't have to go back to that playground. We'll find a better one, ok?" Korra tried to sound optimistic as she healed the scrapes but the girl just hiccupped.

"They hate me… They say I'm c-eepy, they t-y to make me mad and squish my castles and hide my shoes and they say…" The four year old trailed off, she was still skipping all the R's even though lately she had started saying words better.

"What? What do they say, Nilak?" She encouraged the girl to continue while she tried to heal the minimal bruising.

"They say bad things about daddy… And sometimes about you…" Nilak murmured sadly and in tears as if that hurt her more than then anything else and the guilt suddenly stabbed Korra like a sharp frozen blade slipping into her chest and piercing through the heart.

"I see… When did this start?" She asked calmly, trying to hide her distress and anger but the girl just shrugged. "Is that why you don't play with anyone anymore?" Korra tried to get answers, any answers, but this time Nilak surprised her by shaking her head. "Then what is it?"

"I don't like." The child muttered between hiccups.

"Don't like what? Playing?" The Avatar was confused.

"The bugs." Nilak replied quizzically and in obvious distressed. "I'm scahed, I don't like it."

"What bugs?" Korra wondered, now very lost, but the girl just shrugged again and started to sob and cover her face with her hands. "Nini, what's wrong?"

"I'm s-sowwy… I'm sowwy, m-mama…" Nilak hiccupped the words, crying all over the place and making further healing impossible, luckily she all that was left was a tiny bit of bruising on her cheek and little scrapes on her knees.

"What for?" The Avatar was more jumbled than ever.

"You got mad… You shouted and said bad wo-ds and the lady said mean things to you…" The child sobbed out, clearly upset for having caused a scene but actually being more articulate than ever before. "I'm sowwy… I didn't want to fight, I didn't want to make you mad…"

"Nilak, don't cry, it's not your fault. I'm sorry I got so angry but I swear it's not your fault, sweetie. They're all stupid poopy-heads and it's their fault, ok?" Korra tried frantically to cheer the girl up but she was too distressed because Nilak's words had made the knife in her heart twist painfully in her chest and scrape the edges of her ribs. "Come on, baby, don't cry, mama can't take it when you cry."

"I want daddy." The child demanded, crying more than ever.

"Ok, ok, let's go get daddy from school." Korra accepted just to try and calm the girl. "But you have to stop crying."

"I want daddy!" Was Nilak's only reply, shrieked out in a near tantrum.

"Alright, alright!" The Avatar surrendered at once and signaled the polar bear dog that padded around nearby. "Naga."

The beast approached and licked the little girl's face for comfort before it knelt and the Avatar climbed onto the saddle with Nilak huddled in front of her, the slow lick had calmed the child down to sniffles and silent tears in a way only Naga could and then the polar bear dog started trotting off, guided by Korra to follow backstreets since the Avatar had already learned her lesson about disturbing traffic with her ride.

They arrived at Liu's academy too early, Noatak was only there three days a week at the moment and should be out early but they still had a good half an hour to wait. The former revolutionist was mostly at the academy to train chi-blockers that would be employed by the police though he had recently taken up a waterbending class for children, the class itself wasn't just about waterbending, it was also about using the techniques of waterbending and applying them to non-bender combat and exercise, the Council hadn't been too happy about it at first, fearing that Amon would twist the future generations with his teachings, but eventually they had to admit that he was doing good work and keep potential waterbenders away from gang recruitment.

There was a small tea and candy shop near the academy, the owners were a non-bender couple that had been encouraged by Liu to open the store there because they all thought it would made a profit with students of all ages and they were right, it also helped that the place was actually really good at what it served. That's where Korra decided they would stay until Noatak was off- she settled in a table in the back by the window with some kelp tea and bought one of the huge blueberry lollipops that Nilak liked so much, hoping that it would cheer the kid up a little.

It took a while for Nilak's sniffles to finally taper off but she did stop crying, unfortunately she wasn't as enthusiastic about the candy was she usually was and merely sucked on it half-heartedly and slowly until the academy's clock tower rang the three o'clock bell and the younger classes of children and pre-teens started spilling out of the door. The girl perked up at once, looking out the window until she surrendered her half-consumed lollipop to her mother and ran out the door, still barefoot and rushing towards one of the men walking past the gate.

Korra left a few yuans on the table, popped the sweet in her own mouth since the kid wasn't going to finish it and followed closely. She spotted Noatak at once- the mask was easy to find in a crowd but he still wore it outside the island because he much rather be noticed by the imposing and eye-catching mask than by stirring pity with the scars. She saw him crouch down to catch the child in a tight hug and she reached them to find Nilak clinging so tightly to her father that he could do nothing but pick her up.

"Hello, dear." Korra said a little dryly and more than a little sarcastically, sucking the tongue-painting lollipop to keep herself busy. "How was your day?"

"Better than yours, apparently." Noatak replied, picking up on her moody tone, he then noticed Nilak's bare feet, ripped clothing and matted sand-filled hair. "What exactly happened here? Nilak, where are your shoes?"

The child didn't reply and just started to hiccup to his shoulder while Korra made mute throat cutting gestures to silence him, Noatak took the hint and just kissed the top of his daughter's head before the three of them and Naga walked down towards the bay where their little boat was waiting to take them home and Korra ended up having to steer it while crunching the candy between her teeth because Nilak just refused to let go of him and he was too concerned by the bruise on her cheek to even try to convince her to let go.

By the time they arrived home the child felt significantly safer and more composed, enough that she was actually hungry so Korra gave her a quick bath and left her eating cherry pancakes and apple juice in the kitchen while Noatak pulled her aside in the living area.

"What happened?" He asked in a no-nonsense sort of way that prompted her to sigh and sit on the couch. His mask had long since come off but he still looked stoic and unreadable.

"Nilak has been getting bullied." Korra replied tiredly.

"Explain." Noatak demanded at once.

"People have been telling me that she's been acting odd and playing alone and today at the playground some kids started picking on her…" The Avatar went on the relay the whole episode as clearly as she could recall it, merely grazing over some particular parts of the argument that followed and totally leaving out her childish payback with the shoes.

She then sighed again and slumped forward with her head in her hands, miserably explaining the whole conversation with their daughter afterwards and neglecting to mention how horrible she felt about the whole thing and how she was starting to doubt her own capabilities for motherhood but all her doubts were still pretty obvious in her demeanor and mood.

"…" Noatak could find the right words to reply so instead he placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled to him gently, he could understand how she felt- they always knew Nilak would face some challenges growing up just because they were who they were but they still felt guilty about it all, especially him… The words 'bloodbender's freakish brood' got etched into his mind as if someone had carved them into the inside of his skull with a dagger.

"Is it horrible that I'm actually kind of proud of her?" Korra looked at him, looking exhausted, angry, miserable and proud all at once. "You should have seen her- she actually held back and she didn't let them see her cry and she chi-blocked for crying out loud! Even I can't chi-block! You would have been proud too, she didn't even try to bend or punch the kids back."

"That is impressive for a four year old but I'm always proud of Nilak." Noatak nodded, still holding her and glancing at Nilak who was drinking her juice in little sips and babbling to her plushy, oblivious of their conversation.

"I know, me too, it's just…" The Avatar searched for the right words. "She's a whole lot more enduring than I ever could be. I would have hurt someone badly."

"I know."

"You know what hurt the most? That she felt bad that I got angry, she'd rather take a punch than see us getting into any fight because of her." Korra's face actually twisted with the sheer pain the thought caused her.

"Being the center of a fight is probably stressing for her. Considering the life we have, can you really blame her?" He enquired softly and knew right away what he was talking about.

"No…" She shook her head and looked towards the kitchen where the child was chewing down the last bits of food. "What do you think she meant about bugs?"

"I don't know, I have to ask her." Noatak stated a bit reluctantly.

"Noatak, no. She just calmed down, let's not drag it up, please." The Avatar begged, seriously concerned.

"Korra, we have to get to the bottom of this, we have to understand why she suddenly went for social to anti-social, especially if the bullying is unrelated." He countered, remaining blank and neutral to hide his own worry.

"I don't think I can take it if she starts crying again." Korra slumped in the couch, looking completely wretched.

"I'll talk to her, I'll handle this." He assured her.

"But…" She didn't have time to protest because Nilak's voice interrupted.

"Mama, I'm done." The little girl called out from the kitchen, clumsily holding up her empty plate and showing it off.

"Leave it to me." Noatak whispered at the Avatar and stood, walking over to the child.

Korra didn't know what to do, she didn't think she could take hearing her daughter cry again so she whistled softly to catch Naga's attention and walked outside with the polar bear dog on her heels; she wasn't sure what she was going to do, probably just race around the beach with the beast, but anything was fine to keep her distracted.

As for Noatak, he joined the four year old and took her dishes to the sink, then he picked her up and carried her until they were sitting on the rug in the living-room and Nilak was on his lap.

"Nilak…" He said her name softly and waited until she looked at him before he spoke. "Mama told me what happened at the playground."

The child became crestfallen and anxious almost immediately, she fidgeted like a tiny caged bird. "I'm sowwy…"

"Don't be scared, I'm not angry." Noatak began to pet her hair softly, it was still loose after the bath and he started to braid it just to calm the girl. "I know it wasn't you fault, sweetheart."

"Hm…" Nilak made a neutral sound of doubt and said nothing.

"I hear you chi-blocked the boy that hit you but didn't hit back. I'm proud of you for that, baby." He praised her, knowing it would calm her sense of guilt but also trying to perceive what she was thinking.

"I don't want to be mean… Not like him… I t-ied not to fight but he squished my castle and I got mad and called him things and he stole my bracelet and we stahted fighting…" Nilak babbled nervously, jumping all the R's as usual and showing off said accessory on her wrist while she clung to her polar dog toy.

"Why didn't you bend?" He was curious, he couldn't deny that.

"He can't bend stuff." She shrugged as if it were that simple.

"So wouldn't be fair if you did, right?" Noatak guessed tentatively.

"Uh uh." Nilak nodded but stopped quickly when she remembered he was braiding her hair, Korra always snapped at her if she moved her head during the task.

"Good girl." He complimented in total honesty, he was impressed and glad his lessons had sunk in. "Where did you learn to chi-block like that?" He was also curious about this, seeing as he was sure Nilak hadn't picked up from watching him, it just wasn't that easy, if it had been then Korra would have learned already too.

"Un-kou Liu." The little girl replied innocently.

"Really? I'm sure he'll be proud of you too." Noatak smiled, he'd have to thank his old friend later but now it was time for more important things. "Sweetie, can ask you a question?"

"Hn." Nilak made a little sound of agreement that she often did without opening her mouth.

"Why don't you want to play with the other children? Why do you hide from them now?" He went straight to the point, there was no use stalling.

"…I don't like the bugs." The child muttered moodily.

"What bugs, Nilak?" Noatak watched her shrugged without an answer so he changed tactics. "What are they like?"

"I don't know… I feel them like…" She moved the tips of her fingers up her arms and body in rapid frantic little motions. "And the dhums are spooky…"

"Drums? What are the drums like?" He questioned calmly and with curiosity as he pinned the last braid in place and shoved away the dark rage that bubbled in him at the sight of the spot where hair was thinner from behind ripped out.

Nilak surprised him by standing up and putting her hands to his temples, she began to tap them with a focused expression.

"Like… Chau's dhum… thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump." She double-tapped her fingers to the sides of his head between pauses but then the rhythm changed. "Kiki's is thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump." Nilak began a rapid steady tap and it shift to an inconsistent and loud triple tap. "Chie's is thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud, thud-thud-thud."

"Drums." Noatak nodded in understanding. "When the other children are near you?"

"And the bugs." She added, running her fingers ticklishly up his arms to highlight her words.

"When they touch you?" He guessed.

"Hn." She made that agreeing sound again but then a thoughtful expression crossed her innocent face. "Grown-ups too. Un-Koh Liu's is funny, it's thump-thump, thump, thump-thump, thump." She tapped her fingers in an erratic way that skipped a beat every so often.

"I know, sweetheart." Noatak nodded, he was aware of what this was- heartbeats, Nilak was feeling heartbeats and the fact that she could feel Liu's arrhythmic heart that he guiltily believed was likely his fault after that treacherous day at the arena, just confirmed the theory. "The children's drums are louder? Or is it because there's too many and the bugs get too creepy?"

"Too many… Too fast… And when I'm mad-…" Nilak didn't know how to finish and got frustrated, furrowing her brow at the lack of words.

"It feels good and bad at the same time, like you can hurt them and crush the bugs but you don't want that and you're not sure you can stop it if they touch you." He finished for her, hoping her young mind would understand.

"Hn." She nodded in agreement and Noatak repressed a sigh.

"You're a good girl, Nilak. No matter what anyone says, you're a good girl." He hugged her to his chest and kissed her temple lightly. "Daddy's going to teach you to get over the bugs, ok?"

"Really?" The four year old perked up immediately.

"Really." He nodded with an encouraging smile even though inside the promise was tearing him apart. "Now, why don't you go play? Mama feels a bit sad, why don't you draw a picture to cheer her up?"

"Sad? Because me?" Nilak wilted a little.

"No, darling. Not because of you, she's proud of you." He bopped her nose and saw her lighten up again before he pat her bottom. "Go on."

"Ok!"

She ran off to get a sheet of parchment and something new Korra had found and bought for her- before they only had charcoal, chalk and paints that made a mess everywhere but the Avatar had found colorful waxy pencils on a visit to the Fire Nation and Nilak simply adored them and their bright shades, plus they were easy to clean off the floor when she drew all over the place.

The girl lay on her stomach on the reg and started to draw just as they heard Korra return to Naga's annex so Noatak got up and quietly stepped into the pen; he didn't close the door, he left it a crack open to be sure he could keep an eye on Nilak so she wouldn't overhear them.

"Korra." He called to get the Avatar's attention; she was brushing Naga's fur somewhat unnecessarily since she had done the same task the day before.

"How is she?" Korra asked immediately.

"Well, she's not crying." Noatak replied to assuage her. "She's drawing."

"That's good." The Avatar nodded with relief washing over her.

"We need to talk." He stated just as silence began to fall between them.

"I don't like that tone." Korra frowned at his foreboding cold voice. "Is this bad news?"

"Yes." Noatak didn't think it was worth sugar-coating.

"…Tell me." She hesitated but steeled herself for the news.

"Nilak's bugs… Are bloodbending." The word came out with certainty but reluctantly.

"That's not possible." The Avatar shook her head in simple denial.

"Isn't it?" He arched a brow at her and spoke cynically.

"She can barely waterbend as it is, she doesn't have the skill to bloodbend, much less without the full moon." Korra forgot all about brushing the polar bear dog and crossed her arms under her chest.

"Must I refresh your memory? I think we both know what Nilak can do." Noatak retorted rather darkly.

"…How do you even hear bugs and think bloodbending?" She shifted the conversation, pretending she hadn't heard his last comment.

"She's feeling people's heartbeats in her head, calls them drums, and the bugs are the sensation of other people's blood when they touch her. It's somewhat like having angry fire-ants running under your skin." He explained as simply as possible but ran a hand through his hair, a sign of obvious stress.

"I suppose you know this from experience?" It was Korra's turn to raise a brow at him.

"Yes, but I was ten when I first felt it, not four." The scarred man sounded bitter about the topic and decided to get factual. "She's not bloodbending but she's sensing and she already realized she can hurt people if she tries to control that sense. Children's heartbeats are quicker and at a playground it gets worse because they are all running and playing and all that adrenaline just makes it so much easier to sense their rushing blood flow, not to mention that such a place means a lot of people gathered together and touching at the same time."

"It's not that she doesn't want to play with other kids, it's just that she's scared and uncomfortable. Is that it?" The Avatar surmised, suddenly making sense of the whole thing.

"Yes."

"How is this even possible? She touches us all the time without a problem." Korra was still trying to remain skeptical for denial's sake.

"Korra, she's always with us, she's probably so accustomed to our heartbeats that she doesn't even notice them." Noatak explained with infinite patience. "She knew yours before she even had one herself, she probably knows it better than you do."

"Ok, fine, but she touches other people too and she's ok- she touches the airbenders and Mako, Asami, Bolin, Skoochy, Chintak, Tani, all the others without a problem!"

"Because she's familiar with them since she was born, Korra. It's foreign blood flows, stranger's heartbeats, that really upset her and children's are probably more intense."

"So she can't be around crowds anymore?" The mere idea pained Korra, how was the daughter of the Avatar supposed to be kept away from people?

"Most likely." He replied grudgingly. "At least until she can learn to tune it out."

"I thought to learn bloodbending first a person had to master waterbending, she can barely bend a cup of water without making a mess." Korra countered, clinging to the hope that he might be wrong.

"Yes, well, she should have to master waterbending and then bloodbending in the full moon before she could bloodbend without it and only after that should even start trying to sense and bend with only her mind. And yet she skipped all that the day she was born." He snapped back at her, starting to lose his cool.

"…How?" She didn't know what else to say.

"Are you still asking that?" Noatak gave her a stern look. "Considering my bloodline, your bloodline, the things you endured while pregnant- prolonged Avatar, corrupted Avatar State and suffering bloodbending- and all the power Ummi developed until her death I'd say we have a strong enough cocktail of options to explain why Nilak is the way she is."

"My daughter is not a bloodbender!" She snapped at last and almost shouted.

"Not yet but she will be whether she likes it or not if she doesn't learn to control it." He argued back, trying to reign in his voice.

"Then teach her. Make sure all she ever does with that skill is sense, maybe she can do something good with it." The Avatar demanded in near desperation.

"I know I have to, Korra, and I already told her I would but… I don't know if I can." Noatak faltered. How could he teach his daughter a skill that had destroyed his life and his family? And yet how could he not if her wellbeing depended on it?

"Why not?" Korra was getting angry and frustrated but what she hated was that he was being cryptic.

"I didn't exactly have the best example to learn from, I'm not sure I can do this and not be cruel… I'm not sure I can teach her and not make her cruel and cold herself." He explained, bearing out his fear like a gaping wound.

"You're not your father. You're NOTHING like him and you won't do to Nilak what he did to you." She still spoke angrily but now her anger wasn't directed at him and she was close enough to poke his chest for emphasis. "Even if you did I'm not your mother, I would know and I would stop you."

"Can you promise me that?" Noatak demanded, as serious as can be.

"I swear on the Avatar Cycle." Korra stopped herself and backtracked. "No, actually, I can't swear on that anymore. I swear by the Avatar State instead."

"This is serious, Korra."

"So am I." She was confident and stubborn and because of that he believed her. Her hands then climbed up his chest to his shoulders in a calming caress. "You can teach her, I trust you. Everything will be ok… Won't it?" She was trying to reassure him but ended up needed some reassurance herself.

"She's kind and she incapable of hurting a spiderfly without remorse... Perhaps she'll be alright."

«Or perhaps this will be torture for her.» Noatak mused, forcing himself to see another perspective, a better one, but the dark side was still there, yet he had to take in account that Nilak was not him and might just remain innocent, unfortunately the nagging worry just wouldn't go away. "I just…"

"Mama!" Nilak's happy voice shut them up and suddenly the girl was running over waving the piece of parchment in her hands. "Mama, look!"

"Is this for me?" Korra crouched down and accepted the gift with a forced smile that quickly became real when she looked at the colorful doodles.

"Hn!" The girl nodded curtly and proudly.

"It's so pretty." The Avatar complimented and pointed at a blue and brow stick figure that was only distinguishable as feminine by the circle breasts and long ponytailed hair. "Is that me?"

"Uh uh." Nilak confirmed and started pointing at the other figures. "And that's daddy and that's Naga and that's me."

"And what are we doing?" Korra went along, enjoying the child's excitement after the depressing day.

"Playing with aunt Asami in her satomobile." The girl stated with a wide grin.

"And where is aunt Asami and her satomobile?" The Avatar blinked at the picture in confusion.

"On the wall." Nilak pointed towards the living room. "I ran out of space." She finally hit an R and her toothy grin almost made Korra forget she'd have to scrub the darn wall later.

"Oh, Nilak…" Korra smiled and shook her head just before she hugged the child playfully tight. "My precious little girl."

The four year old ended up dragging her parents to see the rest of drawing that was now a colorful mural, her happy-go-lucky attitude relaxed them and in that moment there were no more tears, they were just a happy little loving family in which Nilak was heedless of her parents' worries and fears, ignorant of how they craved revenge on the bullies that hurt her and naïve about her own terrifying abilities.


	13. Taken

"Castaway" Ficlet 13: Taken

_(For BarleyGuy for being one of the most supportive people towards the ficlets and the upcoming sequel._

_This idea actually occurred to my sister and myself during a mall trip on the Christmas of 2012… And since it stuck to my memory up to this day I figured it was worthy enough to be written down._

_Warning: Lots of spoilers not for the plot but for all my "Castaway" amorra babies._

_Trigger Warnings: Kidnapping situation, threats on children, minor violence against children, sexual harassment, gore (not on the children), foul language._

_7,206k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"How dare they?!" The Avatar bellowed in such rage that the air in room rumbled with the sound of her voice and all those present backed away. "How dare anybody do this to my babies?!"

"Korra, please calm down." Noatak advised with steely coolness.

"Calm down? CALM DOWN?!" Korra shrieked even louder, stomping her foot until furniture shook and even toppled over from her wayward bending as she crushed a note in her flaming hand. "SOME ASSHOLES DARED TO KIDNAPP _MY_ CHILDREN FOR A RANSOM AND YOU TELL ME TO CALM DOWN?!" She shook her fist at him where only ashes of the note now remained.

"Our children, dear. And yes, please tone it down a bit before you destroy the temple." He retorted bitterly though she wasn't the one he was bitter at.

"Korra, we'll save them. I promise you they'll be fine." Mako intervened, he was trying to keep a level head and approach the situation calmly but truth be told, if it was his child he would have been just as angry. "You know I mean it, after all it's not the first time this happens."

"I already have my best men on the job. Try not to go on a rampage just yet." Beifong added for good measure, she acted hard as stone but decisive.

"Your children are very resourceful and resilient and you'll do them no favors by antagonizing their captors." Tenzin put in as well, attempting to ease the fiery thirty-two year old Avatar that tended to revert to her teenage brashness in such situations.

"STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!" Korra shouted at all of them in outrage. "I'll find them even if I have to beat down every criminal in this city and I swear when I get my hands on those filthy little maggots I'll snap their spines and I'll…"

"Noatak, do something." Asami tugged the former equalist's sleeve in distress, he was just standing there in his mask watching the Avatar rage without intervening.

"Such as?" Noatak glanced at the lovely woman with ice cold eyes.

"Calm her down. Tell her that she can't just go around hitting people for answers and she can't just kill the kidnappers just like that." The heiress admonished a little shocked by her friends' red hot fury.

"Why would I say such a thing?" The masked man tilted his head in mild curiosity.

"What?" Asami was a little confused but now she wasn't the only one paying attention to him.

"You don't seem to understand, apparently you are under the impression that I disagree with Korra's methods and desires." Noatak's hands folded behind his back and he stood perfectly straight and dignified.

"You don't?" Mako raised a brow, voicing Asami's doubt as well.

"No, I want those parasites exterminated as much as she does and I plan to aid her in the task." He sounded cool and composed but there was a sharp dangerous undertone to his rusty voice. "After all they must have been aware of that danger when they dared to take _our_ children."

"But you said…" Asami trailed off, trying to make sense of the man.

"I merely meant that this must be approached with a plan and a cool head, exploding with rage here will do the children no good." Noatak explained and glanced at his lover. "She needs to save that anger for after we find them."

"You can't be serious!" Mako nearly shouted himself. "I know they took your kids but if you go on a kill spree you'll both end up in jail no matter who you are."

"Not if there is no evidence. Or bodies." Korra put in suddenly and completely serious.

"True." Noatak agreed.

"Chief, are you hearing this?" Mako turned to his boss, totally appalled.

"I have been rendered temporarily deaf from all the screaming, I have not heard a word spoken from all the way over here and hope not to discover what the conversation was about any time soon." Beifong had her back turned as she spoke to Tenzin on the opposite corner of the room.

"What?!" The firebender was shocked.

"She understands 'cause she's a mom too." Korra retorted with a wave in the policewoman's direction.

"But Korra…!" Both Mako began to argue only to get interrupted by the Chief's son himself.

"Aren't y'all forgetting something reeeeeeally important here?" Skoochy, who had been silent by the door waiting for news from his colleagues, finally spoke up.

"What do you mean?" Asami asked the twenty-seven year old.

"These are the Avatar and Amon's kids we're talking about. Do you really think those kidnappers have it easy? Don't you remember what happened to the last bunch?" Skoochy actually chuckled, he didn't seem the least bit worried.

"Oh… He has a point." Tenzin let slip before he could help himself.

"There's news!" Bolin, looking rumpled and unshaven, suddenly stumbled into the room and fell flat on his face with an old Pabu standing on alert over his head.

"CHIEF!" A metalbender police officer followed the other earthbender and side-stepped his fallen form to deliver the information. "We were just told by the southwest patrol that it appears the kidnappers were spotted driving out of town towards Dao Ma."

"Let's go." Korra announced and left the room in a rush with Noatak on her heels.

"Wait!" Mako, Bolin, Tenzin, Beifong and Asami rushed to follow before the couple did some serious damage.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"You're doing it wrong." A young eight year old boy, Kalle, the spitting image of Avatar Korra down to a shorter version of her hairstyle and with the exception of his pale ice chip eyes, spoke up in a bored commanding tone.

"Yeah, totally." Korei, the first boy's twin, identical to him the last detail, agreed with disdain.

"That's not how you hold a baby." Kalle shot at the gruff bearded man with a nest of black hair that attempted to silence a wailing child in his dusty calloused hands.

"Stupid monkey-snail man." Korei insulted and shook his head arrogantly.

"Shut up, little imps." The man hollered at them, causing the baby to cry even louder.

"Just put the brat in the box, Dai." A second man, one sitting on a rickety wooden crate and sporting long shaggy brown hair and heavily wrinkled muddy eyes ordered with immense annoyance.

The enormous gruff man obeyed and set the infant in a box that he jiggled in an attempt to rock the baby into silence while the two boys that were tied up together to two massive beams in the dirty and dusty decrepit warehouse in the middle of nowhere watched with critical eyes.

"She won't stop crying if you do that." Kalle interjected with a bored yawn.

"And your baboon face is ugly, it's scaring her." Korei added for good measure with his tongue sticking out.

"I said- SHUT UP!" The gruff man, Dai, stood up and smacked Korei across the left cheek, leaving an angry red handprint that would have reduced any other child to a sniveling mess.

"Rei!" The first twin called for his brother and then snarled at the guy. "Don't hit my brother, you bug-face!"

"Yeah, what if I get a bruise?! Then we won't match for a while!" Korei accused angrily with tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

"Priorities, Rei!" Kalle snapped with a roll of his eyes.

"But it's true!" The younger twin countered.

"Here's one to match then." The irritated Dai smacked Kalle this time, just as hard as he had the other boy except he hit the right cheek.

"Wrong side, moron!" Kalle shouted furiously in reply to the assault, also holding back tears.

"Who's messing up the priorities now, Kal?" Korei smirked like his mother did but it made his cheek sting so he stopped.

Kalle stuck out his tongue and blew raspberries at his brother but then he glared at the large black haired man and his four watching companions and said with simple cold certainty- "…Our mom is gonna kill you guys."

"She's the Avatar, you know?" Korei agreed at once with immense pride. "And she's like, super strong."

"And she has a polar bear dog bigger than your truck and Spirit friends that can find you anywhere you hide." The older twin added for good measure, he was right though- Naga was indeed bigger than the cramped vehicle used to abduct them from the solstice festival and Korra did have connections in both worlds that could help her find the children.

"…Really?" A tall man that had been standing silently by the only door finally spoke up with an edge of worry, he had greying hair and wide lips with a slightly nasal voice. "Dude, you never mentioned Spirits."

"What makes you think we're gonna let her close enough to even touch us? Spirits or no Spirits?" The shaggy brown haired man replied with his grumbling voice, he appeared to be the leader.

"Once we have our money, we'll be long gone before she even finds you." The black haired behemoth returned scornfully towards the boys. "Besides, we're not dumb, we didn't kidnap the Avatar's kids without making sure to plan against her powers."

"…Pffft…" Korei tried not to laugh but was unsuccessful and ended up snickering. "Did you hear that, Kal? They made _plans_ to trick mama."

"You guys are dead meat." The older twin shook his head, he almost felt sorry for the kidnappers.

"Say that again, you little punk?!" A fourth man, one sitting on the opposite side of the twins spoke up at last; he was an impatient looking person with dark brown hair in a ponytail, bloodshot yellow eyes and flames were sprouting threateningly from his greasy fist. "You think we can't handle your bitch of a mother? Don't you worry, we'll put her in her place even if she does find us."

"Aww… You're so wrong it hurts." Korei sounded condescending, almost as if he found the men's opinions to be cute rather than worrisome.

"Cocky, aren't they?" Kalle smirked but, like his twin, the expression hurt his face.

"Well, that just makes them even deader." Korei tried to shrug but it was impossible in all that roping.

"And why's that, smartass?" The ponytailed man snapped irately.

"'Cause IF you do manage to keep mom from crushing you and try to hurt her…" Kalle began with a disturbing smile.

"Dad will find you even if you run to Spirit World to hide and he will tear you apart…" Korei continued cheerfully.

"Limb from limb…" The first twin added.

"Slowly…" The younger one continued once more.

"Until you beg him to end it." Kalle completed.

"…Boss, they have a point." The tall nervous guard by the door put in a little frightened.

"Shut up!" The shaggy haired man with heavy wrinkles ordered harshly. "If he tries anything he goes back into the can."

"Are these guys idiots?" Kalle asked his brother with disdain.

"SHUT YOUR TRAPS." Dai shouted, it was easy to push his buttons and yet he had been the only kidnapper attempting to calm the baby rather than ignore it like the others.

"Idiiiiiiots." Both boys mocked in unison.

"Boys." A low raspy female voice spoke the single word with ease and two children were silenced at once. "Behave."

"Oh look!" The ponytailed abductor spoke with scorn towards the teenage girl tied to a beam opposite to her siblings. "The freaky _thing_ speaks!"

"…" Nilak, whose long hair fell over her face and who was tied on her knees and chi-blocked on top of that, refused to reply to the taunt and merely remained silent as she had so far. She saw no need to attract attention or speak unnecessarily and preferred instead to focus on analyzing the opponents and placing her attention on the baby that still cried and sniffled in the box.

"What did you just call our sister?" Kalle asked in a dangerous growl.

"Her name is Nilak, you fu-…" Korei began to shout but was cut off by the elder sister's level voice.

"Rei. Language." She warned coolly.

"I know what her name is, brat." The ponytailed man sneered. "She's still a freak."

"I'm gonna cut your fucking tongue out." This time Kalle was the one to lose his bearings and curse.

"Kal. Must I repeat myself?" Nilak admonished in the same aloof cold tone.

"But he called you a…" The boy tried to defend himself but she didn't allow it.

"I heard. Please do not lower yourselves to the level of maggots, that is unbecoming." The girl stated with simplicity, she was used to being called worse, she didn't want to see her brothers get angry and uncouth over something so minor.

"What did you just call us?" Both the ponytailed man and his enormous bearded companion moved closer to the thirteen year old girl.

"I don't believe I was referring to anyone in specific but if the shoe fits…" Nilak trailed off complacently, she was usually heavily sarcastic and mouthy but in danger situations she tended to become frosty and a silent composed observer except this time she couldn't resist the little bit of derision.

The irritable man with the ponytail slapped her so hard that the back of her head banged into the solid wood pillar she was tied too and she saw stars explode behind her lids, his firebending singed her bangs slightly and left a red superficial burn on her jaw, she managed to avoid worse but he'd never understand how.

"Nini!" Both boys shouted in worry and outrage as Dai lifted the girl by her hair to examine his companion's handiwork.

"Let go of our sister, you big bullies!" Korei kicked around in ropes, both boys were immensely protective but try as they many they couldn't move to help.

"Guys, don't damage the goods." The shaggy leader bossed the two men. "Let's not give their parents any more reasons to come after us."

"Shut up, Chai. The little bitch is just like her freak of a father, she needs to learn her place." The firebender snapped back rudely with his fist still encapsulated in flame, Nilak surmised he was one of those people still holding a grudge towards Amon and probably despised her because she was so much like her father.

"Pretty hot for a freak if you ask me." The last of the abductors who had been silent and utterly bored thus far finally joined in and snuck up next to the girl in order to grope her already generous growing bosom, he was a middle-aged bald man with squinty moss colored eyes and a habit of licking his lips every other minute.

"Please be so kind as to remove your paws." Nilak requested coldly, glancing down at the large spidery hands that squeezed her chest.

"Why you…" The firebender raised his hand to strike again but the bald guy stopped him.

"No, wait. Don't shut her up." The sleazy groper licked Nilak's cheek until she had to resist the urge to gag. "In fact I'd love to make her scream."

"Flint, don't start getting any of your funny ideas." The leader scowled, obviously disturbed by the other's attitude.

"Ah, come on! I promise I won't even bruise her!" The bald man pleaded a little sulky, plucking at the edge of her shirt so it slid down her shoulder.

"Yeah and what if the chi blocking wears off? You wanna risk having her bend?" This time it was the bearded man that interjected, he too looked disgusted by his companion's comments.

"There's no water here and she's still tied up." The guy named Flint countered with confidence. "And she knows that if she tries anything we'd slit the baby's throat."

"You wanna risk that?" The leader insisted.

"Tsk. Fine." The bald man huffed and gave a long suffering sigh before he glanced at the girl, his hand sliding up her thigh. "Such a waste. She might have enjoyed it, you know?"

"I assure you that even if you were not a kidnapper and completely abhorrent, you would still have no chance of making me enjoy anything you have to offer." Nilak replied with total certainty and this time she spat in his face.

"Arrogant little bitch." The guy wiped the spittle from his cheek and snarled.

"One day one of these gals is gonna kick you in the nuts and you'll be one screaming." The bearded behemoth shook his head with disdain.

"They've tried. I have balls of steel, man." The sleazy bald abductor grinned.

"Good thing a few metalbenders I know are probably on their way now." Nilak couldn't keep the sarcasm off her voice.

"Oh, I'd love to teach that sassy mouth of yours a few things." The guy held her by the jaw, shoving his fingers into her mouth to capture her tongue.

"I'm sure it could teach you a lot more instead." She retorted a little slurred and bit down hard enough to make him pull his bleeding hand away. "Like how to squeal like a little girl."

"Hey Kal, what are they talking about? Nini has that smirk." Korei suddenly asked his brother in face of the slight smirk on his sister's lips and the other man's nonsensical shouting.

"Hell if I know." The older twin was just as clueless to whole scene and the innuendo within it as his brother, he then chose to get some attention again and annoy the kidnappers. "Hey, I'm thirsty!"

"Me too." Korei agreed at once.

"Give us water!" Kalle demanded.

"How many times to have to tell these brats to shut up?" Dai roared with irritation.

"WATER! WATER! WATER! WATER!" The twins began to chant loudly and annoyingly.

"Stop it." The ponytailed man redirected his attention at the two boys as well.

"WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER…" The kids kept yelling in unison until the baby started wailing all over again to add to the ruckus. "WAAAAAAATER!"

"Give them a damn drink." The leader ordered, rubbing his temples to chase away a headache.

"But what if they bend?" The ponytailed man countered.

"Those two can't bend, jackass. Everybody knows that." Chai, the boss, snapped, still rubbing his head. "Can someone please shut up the Spirit-damned baby?!"

"I can but you have to untie me." Kalle announced sneakily.

"Forget it." The shaggy haired man shot back.

"And I need to pee." Korei whined. "Let me go pee! I'm gonna leak!"

"You can forget that too. We're not untying you for anything." Chai announced with finality.

"We'll tell our parents and aunty Beifong you molested us." Korei threatened spitefully.

"Yeah, you'll get punished even worse and they'll chase you even if you get your money and run!" Kalle added for support.

"What the hell…?!" The tall nervous man by the entrance was shocked by the sudden threat.

"Relax. They don't even know what that word means." Flint interjected with a dismissing wave of his hand.

"Oh, they know." Nilak chuckled softly.

Suddenly Kalle started to sniffle and fake tears trailed down his cheeks as he made a sweet and overly pitiful face. "Mama, the bad men took my clothes and touched me in weird places."

Korei mimicked his brother's overly childish tone, also crying crocodeer tears and whining. "Daddy, they made Shikou cry and made us sit in our pee all tied up. It hurt so much…"

"Why, you little sneaky motherfuckers!" Dai growled, all of the men realized that if the boys put up such an act they would never be able to escape the wrath of the parents.

"Just untie them to use the bathroom and shut the baby up." The leader stated in a moment of half panic under a cool façade. "All this noise is giving me a headache."

"But boss…" The ponytailed and bearded men started to argue.

"You can't handle two 8 year old non-bender brats with their hands tied?" Chai snapped angrily. "Just do it."

"Yes, boss…" Both men grumbled and loosened the ropes that kept the boys tied to the pillars but kept the ones around their wrists.

Kalle rushed to the baby at once, he had to juggle a little to get the child out of the box with his hands tied in front of him but he found a way to hold his child to his chest, she was just a year old and couldn't even stand on her properly yet or say more than three or four words in total so he clung to her protectively and rocked her slowly.

"Shh, Shikou. Big brother is here, see?" Kalle whispered soothingly to the baby and glanced at Nilak who was watching him.

"What's taking you so long?" The gruff bearded man snapped at Korei who was in a corner trying to do his business against the wall.

"Stop looking!" The younger twin bossed a little and also glanced over his shoulder towards the older sister. "I'm shy."

Two seconds later both boys were breaking into a run across the warehouse, somehow their hands were free and Kalle passed the baby to his brother who climbed up the pillars and creaking boards of the warehouse like a trained lemur until he was balancing on the ceiling beams with Shikou tucked in his shirt that he tied around his torso like a makeshift sling.

"Get them!" The leader of the kidnappers roared.

"Go Rei! Get Shikou away!" Kalle shouted up to his brother.

"What about you and Nini?" The younger twin looked concerned but skillfully dodged a strike of flame that the ponytailed man shot in his direction.

"Come on, Rei." Kalle gave his brother a condescending expression as he jumped and skipped over the huge black bearded attacker. "It's us you're talking about."

"…Right." Korei nodded with a chuckle and ran with perfect balance along the main beam heading for an opening in the rickety roof.

Among all the siblings, Korei had always been the one with best equilibrium and that was why Kalle had entrusted Shikou to him, this skill was partially because the younger twin was the only one that wasn't afraid of heights but also because he had good teachers, specifically a pair of siblings that had taught him about circus acts like the high wire.

"Get down from there!" The firebender hollered at the escaping boy who made faces at him in reply.

"Come here, you brat!" Both the huge Dai and his tall nervous companion were now chasing Kalle all over the warehouse but he avoided them easily and was cheeky enough to slide under their legs and skip over their heads until they knocked into each other and started to get winded from the chasing the slippery child.

The sleazy Flint joined the fray too and tried to climb up an old rusty wall ladder to block Korei's escape route with a whip wrapped around his wrist and ready to use; the kid secured the baby to his body more carefully with his clothes and hung from the beam before swinging into a different section and running towards another crumbling spot of the old roof, the metal paneling was tricky but rust and nature had already corroded some parts enough to create holes.

The two that chased Kalle took up an electric staff and chains and tried to catch the boy by any means necessary even if that meant beating him into submission but Kalle avoided the weapons as if he could guess where they were going to strike next and used his small scrawny frame to his advantage in order to mislead and dodge the opponents. At some point the tall man managed to get to close and grabbed the boy by his clothes but Kalle snapped his fingers under the guy's arm and suddenly it let go and fell limply and chi blocked at his side.

The men were getting frustrated, they didn't know how the boys have gotten loose though the ropes appeared to have been cut somehow and they hadn't been expecting competent chi blocking from eight year olds, then again they should have guessed that if the Avatar's children were non-benders that meant their parents would find another way to ensure they knew how to defend themselves.

"Both of you are going to stop running and get back here at once or I'm going to cut your ice princess's face up right now." The leader of the hooligans suddenly shouted at the boys and held a knife to Nilak's face, she didn't flinch and actually looked bored.

"Nini…" Korei stopped running for a moment and looked towards his sister, Kalle was also getting distracted but still avoiding blows.

"Tell them to obey." Chai growled at the girl, pressing the blade so it bit into her skin.

"Boys…" Nilak spoke with cold calm. "Exactly how many times were you hit so far?"

"Three for me." Korei yelled up from his beam.

"Four." Kalle replied as he spun around the big bearded man.

"I see… Seven blows. You're getting sloppy." She admonished softly. "A pity, I don't quite like odd numbers, they make me restless."

"The fuck is she babbling about?" The bald man shouted while trying not to miss his footing on the ceiling shafts.

"Tell them to behave NOW!" The leader roared in her face, his rotten bitter breath nearly turned her stomach but she still didn't move.

"Boys, you know what to do." Nilak stated with ease.

The twins nodded and Korei kept running until he reached the small hole that could grant passage to the outside while Kalle chi-blocked the tall man's leg until his knees buckled and he fell to the ground.

"Hey! Don't you dare!" Flint snapped at Korei and rose his whip as the boy tried to kick open the hole a little more in order to fit through it.

"I swear I'll cut her!" Chai yelled and repositioned the blade more firmly to the girl's dark skin, distracting Kalle who was caught by the enormous kidnapper.

"What the…" Suddenly the bearded man's feet froze to the ground and Kalle snagged loose by ripping his shirt.

"Who's bending?!" The bald man shouted as his whip was flung from his hand by a shot of water that had come out of nowhere.

"You said the boys couldn't bend!" The tall anxious abductor accused the boss.

"They aren't bending. Though their lack of bending seems to have caused you to underestimate their abilities." Nilak replied quietly.

Kalle suddenly managed to chi-block the tall man entirely so that he landed face first on the dirty floor, unable to move, the boy the used the man's staff to trip the huge Dai with a jolt of electricity. At the same time another spectacular shot of water hit the ceiling where Korei was kicking and froze so that the boy easily broke open the hole and started to slip out; another blast of water hit the firebender in the face and froze as well so that the man fell and choked until he manage to melt the ice with his bending.

"Is she doing that?!" The huge black bearded man shouted in pain from the ground.

"She's fucking chi blocked and tied up completely! How can she bend without moving, dumbass?! It's one of them." The bald man screamed while trying to catch up to Korei without falling.

"Please let my siblings go before things start getting unpleasant. I'd really hate to have them see any more violence." Nilak requested politely but stonily.

"That's it. I'm sick of this!" Chai announced suddenly and yanked the girl up by her hair, she was getting tired of people doing that.

"Boss, what are you doing?!" The largest man stood on shaky legs and momentarily forgot Kalle to stare at the leader.

"_You_ just told _me_ not to damage the goods!" Flint shouted with irritation, he had finally grabbed Korei's foot as the boy was halfway out the hole but the kid was kicking wildly to get free.

"These brats need a lesson." Chai stated and the tip of his blade slipped up to the outer corner of Nilak's periwinkle eye, leaving a scratch in its path. "Don't worry, I won't kill you, I'm just gonna take one of those pretty little eyes so you can all see how serious we are."

"Nini!" Kalle cried out in distress.

"Caught you." The enormous Dai took advantage of the distraction and caught the older twin in a steely grip.

"Kal!" Korei shouted out, having noticed the situation and the bald attacker also took advantage of the child's concern to pull him back inside by the ankles.

Amidst all the mess and threats and struggling children Nilak merely sighed, completely overlooking the blade about to slip into her eye socket while she said simply- "Well, I tried to do this peacefully but they never listen."

"What the fuck?!" The leader shouted as the blade slipped lazily from his paralyzed fingers and his hand froze midair. "My hand won't move!"

Suddenly the hands of the men holding the twins twitched in the same manner and were immobilized for a few precious seconds that the boys used to slip away and chi-block the two opponents.

"Argh!" The bald man found his knees failing and fell off the beam with an anguished cry that mutated into a shriek of pain when he landed a couple dozen yards below on his legs that broke instantly.

More water appeared out of nowhere, apparently seeping straight from the walls and the ground and it battered the firebender and the leader of the group with blunt force until they were curled on the ground to protect their vitals while Kalle rushed to chi-block them as well and Korei, having noticed that the threat had ceased below, chose to come back down rather than risk his little sister by skidding across the roof and trying to find purchase to get down from the outside.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING?" The firebender screamed in blind panic, rolling away from the boy's skilled hands but still getting smacked around by globs of liquid.

A tiny portion of water separated from the attack and solidified into an icy blade that sliced cleanly across the ropes that tied Nilak so competently. For a while now she had been focusing on her blood stream and using it to redirect her chi until the effects of the chi-blocking were dim enough that she could stand straight on shaky legs and walk again and that was exactly what she did.

The bald man that had groped her earlier was in the way and she _accidentally_ stepped over his crotch with the full weight of her body inciting a blood-curdling scream that she found immensely rewarding for those moments that it took to get past him and head towards the only two men that could still struggle in any way- the leader and the firebender that could not fight under the water's ruthless strikes but who moved too much for Kalle to chi block either of them.

"I did warn you, didn't I?" The girl looked impassively down at the leader and the man's body froze abruptly just long enough for Kalle to strike down his spine and paralyze him.

"This is even easier than last time." The older twin laughed loudly and boisterously. "Took a while though."

"Yes, I quite detest people that don't do their homework, especially criminals who try to touch my precious siblings." Nilak stepped on the firebender's hand as he too was immobilized just long enough to Kalle to chi block him.

"We're gonna kill you all for this, you little brats." The leader of the group growled in blind fury.

"Empty threats from a fallen foe and simply pathetic, did you not know?" Nilak stated stoically, once again she revealed a side of her that was unusual and only came out in dire situations- the side that spoke formally and eloquently and that remained cold and expressionless.

There was a roar when the enormous bearded abductor got up with some strain, pulling a blade from his boot and running to tackle the girl like a derailing train, Kalle had miscalculated the blocking against a person so large and bulky and the man had recovered too fast and would easily hit Nilak before she time to focus and defend with one of her psychic attacks, luckily Korei flung a piece of a broken wooden crate at his legs and the man stumbled, the boy then hopped onto Dai's back and slammed down on a particular set of chi points with such force that the attacker blacked out completely and toppled over like a log falling over after the cut.

Shikou was screaming all over again but the boy checked to make sure she was ok in the improvised sling that his clothes provided and once he was sure she was safe he calmed her and hummed a cheerful little tune until the baby stopped crying and snuggled to him. Nilak nodded gratefully at her little brother and kissed the top of his head once he was close enough, Kalle gave his twin a proud thumbs-up.

"How…? HOW?!" The firebender hollered in mingled panic and rage. "How did a bunch of brats defeat us?"

"Oh, you want to know where you miscalculated?" Nilak asked with a curious tilt of her head.

"Tell them, Nini." Kalle and Korei seemed excited at the prospect of watching his sister put someone in their place.

"You made many technical mistakes but I praise you for getting this far, with our training and experience with abductions it's quite rare for a kidnapper to even be able to snatch us, much less keep us restrained this long." Girl praised the men sarcastically- they hadn't been that good, the only reason they had succeeded thus far was because they grabbed Shikou first and the other siblings had been afraid for her. "However, allow me to elaborate on the biggest flaws of your plan- to begin with you chose to chi block, drugs would have been much more effective on me; you also chose rope over handcuffs, a grave mistake although Kalle and Korei are very adept at lock picking those blindly so either way you would have failed. Secondly you did not hide us well enough, you were too focused on making back-up plans against our mother that you got sloppy with everything else, an abandoned warehouse is very obvious and accessing water from the rusty degraded pipes here is not hard. Thirdly you underestimated us under the misconception that because we have powerful parents that means we are spoiled and sheltered, you underestimated me as a bender and as a person and you certainly underestimated my brothers for their lack of bending when they are actually quite capable in martial arts. And finally, worst of all, you made the grave mistake of bringing my sister too."

"Yeah! Shikou is just baby and you scared her!" Korei reinforced angrily.

"We're gonna beat you to mush for that!" Kalle agreed, already popping his knuckles in preparation.

"No, boys. Mama and daddy must be very worried by now and Shikou is upset enough as it is so please take her outside and make yourselves visible, I'm certain help won't take long to arrive." Nilak instructed her brothers with patience.

"But we wanna get even!" Korei whined like any child would when deprived of a treat.

"Yeah! What if they get away?" Kalle added in the same tone.

"I'll restrain them. Now go, please." The girl requested, motioning towards the exit.

"Nini…" The twins were both highly reluctant.

"I said go, kiddos." Nilak's voice softened and she really smiled for the first time.

"No…" Kalle pouted but he went willingly when his brother pulled him along.

"Don't take long." Korei requested.

"I won't." She assured the two boys and waited until she was sure they were well out of earshot before she turned towards the kidnappers again, with a flick of her wrist all their paralyzed bodies slid towards her in a perfect file, pulled by the water that now permeated their clothes. "Where were we, gentlemen?"

"She's gonna kill us… Oh Spirits she's going to bloodbend us to death!" The nervous tall man screeched after the painless dragging that put him next to his companions, his eyes kept darting from Nilak to the bald man that whimpered and cried out in pain over and over.

"She's not gonna kills us!" The leader snapped shouted back and then faced the girl as well as he could. "Are you, sweetheart? You're not cruel enough to kill and if you tried we'd tell everyone you bloodbent us and you know what the punishment for that is, don't ya?"

"The word of a bunch of kidnappers or the word of the Avatar's daughter? Hm… I wonder which one people would believe." Nilak tapped her lips with a shadow of an amused smile.

"She's gonna kill us!" This time it was the firebender who screamed the words in distress.

"No, she's not!" The leader yelled again, attempting to rationalize the matter. "We're already down, you wouldn't kill or hurt or a fallen enemy, right? You're the Avatar's kid, you have honor."

"Honor, huh?" Nilak smiled for the second time but it was tinted with malice and a touch of something a little bitter, she then cracked her knuckles much like her brother had and water started to float around her like an extension of her being. "Seven blows, wasn't it?"

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Mom! Dad!" The twins shouted in unison and waved as they spotted their parents practically jumping off the police airship that had been scouring that abandoned stretch of terrain for a while. The boys had been waiting for half an hour and were starting to consider checking up on their older sister when they spotted the approaching vessel.

"Dada!" Shikou called out happily upon spotting her father's dark mask in the distance.

"Boys! Shikou!" Noatak reached them first and hugged the brothers to him tightly, examining them carefully before he took the baby as if she were glass, he took a moment to look at her too and then sighed in relief. "We were so worried."

"My babies!" Korra ran and skid down to her knees, hugging the twins so tightly that they couldn't escape as she started kissing all over their faces in complete relief and joy.

"Mom… Mom!" Kalle tried to push her away halfheartedly with his dark cheeks and ears pinking up.

"That's embarrassing, mom." Korei added but did not struggle and giggled at her kisses although also blushed.

"Shut up!" The Avatar ordered in worry and only pulled back enough to look at them and push their hair back so she could examine the faint bruising on their cheeks. "Are you ok, did they hurt you?"

"Nah." Korei smirked cockily.

"They totally sucked. It was easy." Kalle waved the matter off.

"But they managed to get this far." Noatak stated in admonishment, still hugging the babbling baby. "If they were so weak how did such a thing happen?"

"We were scared for Shikou…" The boys replied in unison, both of them trailing off with their smugness fading away under their father's words.

"Where's Nilak?" The masked man asked, still apprehensive.

"Inside…" Kalle pointed at the warehouse down the road but was interrupted by an abrupt burst of loud screaming from within the place.

Korra and Noatak rushed to the decrepit building as Tenzin took Shikou and Asami, Mako and Bolin took turns hugging and checking out the boys while Skoochy, the Chief and her men prepared to go in. Just before the couple reached the entrance Nilak exited the warehouse looking perfectly calm and impassive even though her navy and indigo clothes appeared spattered and stained in something dark.

"Nini!" The Avatar hugged her daughter with such sudden force that she lifted the teenager off the ground completely.

"Oomph! Mom, air!" Nilak complained, a little winded from the embrace. Korra reluctantly let go but kept looking all over her daughter for any sign of injury.

"Nilak!" Noatak wrapped his arms around his firstborn almost as frantically as Korra had but he was gentler and, as always, Nilak melted into his hug without complaint.

"Daddy." The girl breathed in his reassuring scent and smiled before the embrace broke and he caressed her cheek that was scratched from the blade.

"Where are the kidnappers?" The question came from Beifong who had just arrived but Korra was thinking the same thing and already facing the entrance with fury twisting her face.

"Which pieces?" Nilak enquired with a sort of detached calm.

"…" Nobody knew what to reply and they all merely stared at the girl in surprise and obvious discomfort since everyone present was aware of just how strong she could be.

"I'm just kidding!" Nilak reverted to her usual self and rolled her eyes at their reaction. "Geez, they're inside. Banged up but alive, I froze them to the ceiling."

They entered the building carefully, looking up at the ceiling with all the others now joining close behind. Noatak's hand was still on his daughter's shoulder, holding on protectively but it was made clear that it was unnecessary seeing as all five men were glued to the metallic plates of the ceiling but rather than being pinned there by an ice cover as Korra and Noatak would have done, they were all shirtless and their skin appeared to be literally frozen to the metal.

"It's aluminum." Noatak noted with some surprise. "And not ice capped."

"So?" Nilak enquired lightly.

"You froze them to aluminum? Their skins will have fused to the frozen metal!" Beifong interject with a shocked expression while the only two men that were still conscious screamed even as their skin tore under their panicked thrashing and obvious pain.

"Will they?" The girl asked with an air of complete innocence and then turned, hushing her approaching brothers away from the scene as she plucked her baby sister from uncle Tenzin's arms and hugged the child with tenderness, speaking over the background of screams. "Shikou, baby, sorry. Big sister won't let the big baddies scare you again."

Nilak walked away with the baby, looking totally composed and back to her usual harmless pacifist self while the boys gloated to Asami, Mako and Bolin about how they had fought off the bad guys and won, the firebender was actually taking notes for the police report but all in all everyone was just glad that the children didn't seem frightened or worse for wear.

"Sometimes she's so much like you that she scares me." Korra whispered lowly to her lover, lacing her hand with Noatak's as the metalbending police officers started trying to lower the shrieking criminals to the ground by breaking apart the metal around them rather than just pulling them off it.

"Sometimes I agree with you." Noatak nodded somberly and squeezed her hand back, both of them choosing to look at the children they adored rather than the criminals that they had wanted to hurt but that now looked absolutely pitiful after facing Nilak's wrath.


	14. Couch

"Castaway" Ficlet 14: Couch

_(For shootforthemoonpaper. Because her loyal reviews are very insightful keep me going._

_I wanted some fighting Amorra and some daddy!Noatak + twins interaction so a particular old little comic of my good friend Tiger popped to mind and inspired this little piece of fluff._

_1,559k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

Even without the screaming they could tell something was wrong by the way they whole house trembled and it didn't take a genius to figure it out- Mama was mad. Of course Kalle and Korei had figured that out the moment she snapped at them to go to bed with Nilak and they had gone because all the way through dinner they could tell that there was a fight brewing between their surly parents.

It was different from usual this time, all the normal signs of an argument were there- Korra and Noatak were shouting unintelligibly in their room and things could be heard being tossed around- and yet it was different because this time it wasn't the Avatar that had gotten angry and started fighting first, it was her lover.

"Go back to bed, boys." Nilak returned from the bathroom and hushed them back to their beds that were pushed together in their room because they always ended up cuddled to one another. The eleven year old big sister didn't seem that bothered by the argument and tucked them in with kisses to their foreheads.

"Nini…" Korei clung to her sleeve when it seemed like she'd leave.

"Why are they angry…?" Kalle asked a little sad. Arguments between their parents weren't that rare but they usually ended well and quickly so when a fight escalated this much for some reason the older twin was always the one that took it the worst.

"Why is daddy yelling?" Korei looked a little scared himself, Noatak very rarely raised his voice even when he was angry so when he shouted they knew it was a terrible omen.

"Don't worry, he's just a little angry at some silliness mama did. Everything will be ok." Nilak chose to settle next to the boys and stay with them until they slept.

The girl ended up telling them a story, a fairy tale about a dragon that fell in love with a human girl and tried to court her with strange magical gifts only to realize that all she wanted was to be able to kiss him without burning her lips on his fiery breath. The boys listened enraptured because Nilak was the best story teller but after a while she dozed and fell asleep before them and yet the shouting match was still going on in the distance and the boys couldn't sleep because of it.

The twins glanced at each other and nodded in a sort of silent conversation that only they understood, they covered their sister in a fluffy blanket and snuck out of the room to hide in the corridor behind a large Earth Kingdom vase close to their parents' room. They had already broken that vase about three time but their mother always managed to glue it back together somehow with uncle Bo's help.

They didn't really understand the argument, they knew that normally mama was the one to get angry and it was often over daddy's _work_ and sometimes about other people but this time their father was the relentlessly angry one and they couldn't figure out why, it didn't help that their mother was too much of a hot-head to reason with him and just kept trying to turn the fight against him.

Kalle and Korei were aware that when Korra and Noatak fought the last thing anyone should do was get between them and, truth be told, they were too frightening to consider getting involved but they wanted to help somehow, they hated hearing their parents fight.

After a while the two adults started to run out of arguments to toss at each and usually that would be when they'd start to listen and try to find a solution and make up with each other, this often involved either some sparring to smack each other around and vent or a whole different set of muffled noises in the bedroom that the kids didn't understand but that usually meant mommy and daddy were going to be just peachy together. Except this time they didn't follow the pattern, this was one of those very rare times were the couple was so intent to keep fighting that they started hashing up old resentments.

The words 'equalizing', 'bloodbending' and 'secrets' were tossed around on Korra's side, from Noatak's end they heard 'reckless', 'bad example' and uncle Mako's name. They five-year olds knew that this set of words mixed together meant trouble and as a matter of fact the noise in the room escalated until their father was practically flung out the door, a pillow hit his face with far too much force and Korra yelled for him to go away before she slammed the door closed in his face.

The fifty-two year old Noatak grumbled something about frustrating women and headed down the stairs, still fuming but looking obviously crestfallen. The boys also knew what this meant- daddy was sleeping on the couch that night.

They had free rooms on the floor above but the former equalist was averse to them, he said that from up there he couldn't hear what went on in the rest house too well and took too long to react if he was needed below; the twins didn't know what he meant by that, after all they could slide down the spiral stair's railing and be on the lowest floor in seconds but they knew their father disapproved of that which also confused them since their mother had been the one to teach them to slide down the railing in the first place.

Kalle and Korei suspected their father just didn't like sleeping alone anymore and in the living room he could always have Naga's company, plus the couch was a little short for the large man but it was wide and comfy so it wasn't so bad, he could also take the immaculately clean fur rug on the floor like their grandparents did when they visited the poles but it was midwinter and too cold for that.

They felt bad for their father… The boys didn't really know what the fight had been about and they couldn't take a side, even if they could they usually sided with Korra anyway because she was the coolest and perfect in their eyes while Noatak was usually too disciplinary and overzealous for their wild ways but none of that changed the fact that they wanted to make their daddy to feel less lonely and they didn't want him to be cold sleeping on the couch downstairs.

Noatak settled on the sofa with his pillow and the old comforter that was usually folded over the armchair nearby, he tossed and turned for a while but eventually relaxed somewhat facing the couch's back and still seething and thinking about the argument while sleep refused to come. He hated going to sleep angry at Korra, in fact he just loathed being mad at Korra at all but sometimes she was just so…infuriating!

He heard a sound behind him- a very soft padding and a tiny creak. The noise didn't alarm him, he was aware of what it was but didn't have the energy to scold the kids back to bed after the long night.

Suddenly there was a tug on the couch and Noatak glanced over his shoulder to spot one of the twins climbing over his brother in order to be able to crawl over the couch and the adult himself, the boy wore fuzzy full body teal pajamas so he assumed it was Kalle. The child then reached down to catch the huge heavy colorful quilt his brother tossed him and clumsily covered his father, he then reached down again to help pull the other boy up, this one wore the same nightwear but in shades of mauve. The former equalist was impressed by their little display of teamwork.

Noatak didn't move through the whole scene and just watched curiously but when the twins lay cuddled together to his body to share warmth under the quilt he felt his anger seep away like water slipping through his fingers, he understood that they wanted to comfort him, take care of him and keep him company which were things that only Nilak ever tried when Korra was angry and even the young girl usually preferred to give him space when the couple argued so that tiny gesture melted his heart so much that he could almost have shed a tear.

The twins looked at their father a little expectantly, wanting to see his reaction and hoping he wasn't too mad to want them there. It was a little cramped but Noatak hugged both boys without a word and allowed them to snuggle in his arms until all three of them were falling asleep, lulled by the polar bear dog's soft snores.

It was always like this, no matter how bad the fight between them, whenever Noatak or Korra saw the children that were a result of their love they realized that nothing was bad enough in this world that it couldn't be solved if not for the sake of those little ones and the kids were so perfect and kind that the pair couldn't be doing anything _that_ wrong, could they? It would be alright, with a loving family like that they would always find a way to make things alright.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

_(Author's Note: To BarleyGuy- You got most of your assumptions right in your review for the previous ficlet! ;) I'm so glad you like my OC's. )_


	15. First Date

"Castaway" Ficlet 15: First Date

_(For Masterkungfu2013. I'm 90% sure this is NOT what this person was expecting when their first date request inspired this ficlet but here it is._

_Thirteen year old Nilak has her first **real** date, her family helps her prepare for it and she learns a new interesting fact about her date that forces her to reevaluate her views in life._

_4,992k words. Enjoy.)_

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

"Stay still, Nilak." Noatak ordered for the fifth time, he didn't want to botch her eyeliner again, not now that he had managed to make her look decent after the mess Korra had made trying to paint the girl's face and ending up making their daughter look like a clown.

"You're taking too long, daddy." The girl pouted impatiently but stilled and allowed him to finish. It was a simple look really- just eyeliner, a little cream concealer to hide the ever erupting acne, powder to set it all and some berry lip shine but despite the simplicity of it all it still took too long for Nilak's tastes.

"Be patient." He advised as he moved on to the other lash-line.

"Ugh." She resisted the urge to scowl but obeyed.

"Sucks, doesn't it?" Korra chuckled at her daughter as she handled the girl's immensely long hair, it was a little tricky because the woman was always too rough with anyone's hair and her currently huge belly got in the way.

"It wouldn't be so bad if you hadn't ruined the first two tries." The girl shot back dryly.

"But it was funny!" Her mother countered with a laugh when she recalled the mess of dusty white powder, kohl liner that made pandafish eyes and the clownish maroon smile.

"Are done with your part?" Noatak glanced up at his lover.

"Yeah, pretty much." The Avatar nodded and gave a last tweak on the teenager's coffee colored hair before she stepped back and cursed when her pregnant belly messed up her balance and caused her to bump into the vanity table and topple a flask of perfume.

"Please tell me you didn't give me ponytails, mom." Nilak grimaced, patting at her hair to decipher what had been done to her usual humble style of loose waves and arched braids framing her head.

"Sush, you look perfect." Korra pat the girl's hands away in admonishment.

"All done." Noatak announced at last and finally set down the little angled brush but before the girl could look in the mirror her brothers came stumbling into the room.

"Nini, look, flowers!" Korei ran inside with an armful of salmon colored flowers but tripped and the plants landed all over her.

"Flowers?" Nilak picked one from her hair and examined the pretty blossom.

"You can't go on a date without a gift!" Kalle walked in after his brother and explained sassily as if it were obvious.

"Where did you get those?" Noatak asked with his arms crossed and a knowing expression on his marked face.

"Hm…" The boys traded a guilty glance.

"I'll talk to Pema." Korra shook her head and repressed a sigh, they could guess the twins had been invading the flower gardens again.

"They are pretty but you shouldn't pick things from the temple's garden." Nilak admonished her brothers but pet their heads to take the sting out of her words.

"I told you we should have just taken cookies!" Kalle snapped sulkily at his brother.

"Well, it's almost time. Do you have everything?" Noatak glanced at the clock and then his daughter as the girl gathered the fallen flowers into a bunch.

"Yes…" She sighed.

"You don't look too excited." Korra poked her daughter's cheek, the Avatar actually seemed to be the most excited one in the group both because her mood swings made her hyperactive and because ever since Nilak trusted her with the truth about her preferences Korra felt touched and kept trying to play matchmaker for no reason other than seeing the girl happy.

"I'm not." The teenager pouted.

"Well, you accepted a date with Minori and you can't back down now." Noatak pat the girl's back.

"I've gone out with Nori before." Nilak argued because it was the truth, she had been hanging out with the other kid since the latter was born.

"As friends with Biya and Rohan. This is different and you knew that when you accepted." The Avatar stated with a mischievous grin.

"How did I get talked into this?" The girl rolled her eyes again.

"Biya said you made a cute couple and told you to say yes." Noatak piped in knowingly, of course Nilak always went along with whatever Biya said because half time she was too busy swooning over the girl to really pay attention to what was being said and she'd do anything to make Biya feel even just a little happier.

"Oh, right… That's how." Nilak frowned, already regretting the decision.

"Just try to have fun, it's not like it's that serious. The kid is only eleven after all." Korra grinned and kept poking her daughter's plump cheek in the most annoying way just to get a reaction out of the girl.

"You had your first kiss at twelve." Nilak countered and tried to lean away from her mother's prodding.

"So?" The Avatar's didn't stop until the thirteen year old was smacking her hands away impatiently like an angry kitten.

"Never mind." Nilak stood and finally looked into the mirror- the makeup was simple but lovely, her hair kept her usual loopy plait to the right side but the left had small braids over her scalp that ended in one of her mother's hair ties and then tumbled down her back in loose curls, the dress she wore was cobalt blue with a rounded neckline, a pleaded skirt and a white beaded sash around her waist that matched the ashy white sandals she wore. All in all she looked cute and Nilak wasn't used to feeling cute. "Where did you get the dress?"

"Asami." Korra replied nonchalantly.

"Isn't that cheating?" The girl arched a thick but perfect brow. "I mean, Nori's clothes come from aunt 'Sami too."

"Yes but Minori doesn't need help dressing up, unlike you." The Avatar teased and bopped the girl's nose.

"Hey! I have dresses and I know how to wear them!" Nilak pouted again, somehow her mother was the only person that really managed to fluster her and pull her away from her normally calm though snarky demeanor.

"Yes, except they are all dark or old fashioned or weirdly cut." The woman shook her head dismissively.

"Says madam man-clothes." The girl stuck out her tongue cheekily.

"My taste in clothing has nothing to do with this, sassy-pants." Korra retorted, sticking out her own tongue in reply, the twins were giggling at the whole scene from their spot on the bed.

"Then why do you get to pick my clothes in the first place?!"

"Nilak, Korra." Noatak's deep rusty voice silenced them at once. "No arguing, please."

"She started it!" Mother and daughter spoke in unison and pointed at each other.

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that my baby girl looks pretty and ready for her first official date." He stated with pride and obvious hidden jealousy.

"Yeah! Nini is pretty!" Kalle reinforced at once.

"She's the beautifulest!" Korei added for good measure.

"Prettiest." Korra corrected automatically but then pouted falsely. "And what about me?"

"Mama too!" The twins ran to the Avatar and hugged her waist though their little arms couldn't go all the way around her big belly. She was tired with shadows under her eyes and kept getting more and more apprehensive and scared lately now that her due date was coming closer but it was these little moments that brightened her days and made her forget the worries.

"Ugh, this is going to be a mess." Nilak grumbled while she picked up her indigo cloth bag from her parent's bed.

"No, it's not." Noatak encouraged.

"Do I have to go? There's gonna be a lot of people." The teenager grimaced, the date was supposed to be an outing to watch one of uncle Bo's movers at the theater and she disliked being packed in a room with so many strangers whose heartbeats hummed around her.

"You'll be fine." Korra waved off the concern.

"I wanna go to!" Korei stated excitedly.

"Can we, mama?" Kalle begged, clinging to his mother's clothes.

"Nope. You boys are coming with me to town with Tani and aunt Asami, I'm craving mango milkshakes." The Avatar announced and licked her lips at the thought.

"Yay!" The twins jumped with joy but Nilak just felt queasy with anxiety.

"I wanna go to my room…" The teenage girl grumbled.

"Come on, Nini. It's not so bad, I'm sure you'll have fun." Korra wrapped an arm around her daughter's shoulder and kissed her cheek.

"Don't think of it as anything special, just enjoy yourself." Noatak advised with a peck to her forehead as well.

"We'll see." Nilak muttered.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

She really had no idea why she had said yes, she didn't know why she was standing around the corner from the Sato manor all primped up and waiting for a date that was younger than her but she considered giving Biya a piece of her mind for ever having talked her into the situation.

Nilak liked Minori but as friends, she was two years older than the other girl and since Minori's mom didn't have much time for her kid and the younger child often argued with her father, Minori ended up spending most of her time at the Air Temple with Rohan, the two were pretty close, almost as inseparable as Nilak and Biya were, which was ironic in their group because Minori's parents were the best friends of Nilak's parents and Biya was Rohan's cousin so technically the best friend order was all mixed up.

Yet the fact was that Minori had asked her out on a real date, at first she didn't take it seriously because the kid was, as Korra had stated, only eleven years old but it became clear that Minori really wanted a real date and the girl was pretty precocious and outspoken so eventually Nilak had to take her seriously and then Biya, the best friend and crush that Nilak would never admit to, pushed her to accept and she did in the spur of the moment. Now she wasn't so sure what to do, she didn't want to break the kid's heart.

"Sorry I'm late, Nil." A playfully but husky voice caught Nilak's attention and she turned to spot her date.

"Oh… Hm… It's ok, Nori. I've only been here a minute." The teen shrugged awkwardly and almost shoved the flowers her brothers had insisted her to take into the kid's hands. "For you. Kal and Rei's idea."

"Thanks, I love camellias." Minori smiled and smelled the flowers with a happy sigh while the other stared.

Korra was right- Minori didn't need help dressing up, she hadn't since the age of six because she had inherited her mother's sense of style.

The girl wore a pretty red dress tunic that fell to just over her knees with golden embroidery all over the sleeves and pointed neckline, her calf-long slacks were charcoal black and her shiny black pumps had just enough heel to make her as tall as Nilak which wasn't really that hard in the first place. Minori's eyes were just like her mother's but pale amber like her father, her distinct pointy eyebrows came from Mako too and she often got teased for them but Nilak though they looked cute, however the only makeup the kid wore was dark red lipstick that she had started stealing from her mom the year before and that had become a bit of a staple, she managed to wear it better than anything Nilak ever put on. Minori also wore a red silk scarf around her neck and then there was the hair- she had lovely wavy black hair that fell below her shoulder blades but she appeared to had shorn the left side of her hair so short that it was barely half an inch long and yet the rest of her locks were still shoulder length and luscious, mostly tied back with a silver ribbon, leaving only a long bang spilling down the right side of a face.

"What happened here?" Nilak traced the short side of the girl's hair.

"Burned my hair during bending practice and had to cut it… Should have tied it." Minori mumbled, blushing slightly. The kid had always been clumsy with her flames and her father kept warning her to tie up her hair. "I couldn't take cutting it all though but I kind of like it like this."

"I like it too, it's unusual and cool." The teen smiled.

"You think so?" Minori brightened up at once.

"Yep." Nilak nodded. "You always look cute though."

"You look really pretty too." The other smiled bashfully and then took a shy whiff of the air. "You smell nice, like leopard-lilies. Isn't that your mom's perfume?"

"She spilled a bottle next to me. Pregnancy makes her a klutz." She snickered lightly and then changed the subject. "Shall we go? The mover won't wait for us." Nilak pointed down the street, trying to avoid revealing her own blush after all the flattery.

"Yes, let's go." The girl grabbed her hand and pulled the waterbender along rather excitedly.

Despite her anxiety the date wasn't as bad as the teenager had expected, it was the middle of the afternoon on a work day so the theater was pretty empty and the mover was surprisingly fun even though the girls would burst out laughing even at the most serious lines because it was so bizarre for them to see uncle Bo pretending to be some sneaky non-bender hero detective from the most recent chapter of the 'Shao Pin' saga.

They shared popcorn and berry pop but they were still hungry when they left the theater and headed for a little teashop nearby where Nilak bought sweet bean paste dumplings, chocolate bonbons and honey-mint tea that they snacked on for a while. It was more or less by then that she realized they were being followed. Of course she was always followed by her pet Kinapak but she noticed there was someone else following this time, she could sense the familiar presence nearby and resisted the urge to roll her eyes all over again when she spotted her father trying to hide in a shadowy corner or the shop while sipping on a steaming drink and staring protectively in their direction with an old shabby hat concealing most of his scarred face.

"Want to go somewhere else?" Nilak asked, wondering if she could lose Noatak in a crowd and just go play with the other girl in some quieter spot.

It turned out Minori did want to go somewhere, there was a new accessory store on Jet street that she wanted to see so they soon left the teashop and Nilak took the girl's hand and weaved through the passersby, they snuck under some food carts and then doubled back and took another route just to be sure that they had lost the person that was following them and fifteen minutes later they were walking into the new shop that was filled with shelf after shelf of cheap but beautiful and colorful jewelry, charms and trinkets.

Minori ended up buying a pair of jade colored bobble earrings for herself and some Water Tribe bone earrings for Nilak, the girl also bought a lovely amethyst pin for the teen because she said it matched her eyes and the latter felt so flattered that in return she got a sun patterned satin scarf for Minori.

It was actually turning out to be a fun day, after the store they stopped to pet some cuddly kittens at the local pet-store and then Nilak rambled about a book she like while the walked to the beach.

"Hm… Does that thing follow you everywhere?" Minori only noticed the large black wolf-cat when it hopped down from a rooftop and started padding silently a few feet behind them until they took off their shoes and started walking barefoot on the sand of what had to be the smallest beach of Yue Bay.

"Yeah, Kinapak doesn't like losing sight of me and will come looking for my scent if I'm gone too long." Nilak shrugged but whistled and the animal rapidly ran towards them and fell into pace next to the girl, it was large enough that its head reached over her hip.

"How does it even leave the island?" Midori blinked in confusion and stared out at the distant blur in the Mo Cea Sea that was Air Temple Island.

"…Actually I'm not sure." Nilak paused and stared down at the animal that rubbed to her leg and purred innocently. Why hadn't she ever thought of that? Could a wolf-cat swim that far?

"It's kinda scary but cute too… And fluffy." Minori crouched to look at the beast. The girl was used to Kinapak by now after years of interaction but had never had the courage to touch the animal.

"You can pet him, he won't bite." Nilak smiled. "Not unless I say so."

"Well…" Minori hesitated but reached for the wolf-cat hesitantly. Kinapak actually tilted its furry head and pressed to the kid's touch and when the girl rubbed the beast's ears it purred even more contently.

"See?" The teen smirked proudly.

"Aww! He's cuddlier than I thought." The girl kept petting and rubbing until Kinapak licked her hands with a sandpapery tongue.

"Told you so." Nilak still smirked but ended up sitting in the sand and watching the sun set while the other played with her pet and they just talked about silly things.

It was strange, she wasn't used to relaxing so easily when alone with another girl, especially because the girl she hung out with the most happened to be her unrequited crush but Minori was different, although younger and despite her prim, laidback and almost haughty ways the girl was easy to talk to and very sweet, she was clumsy and a little too smug but also insightful and delightfully sneaky. Nilak almost wished Minori were older so she wouldn't feel weird kissing the kid because all of the sudden she wanted to do just that.

"Nil… You ok?" The girl's voice snapped her out of her reverie and Nilak realized she had been staring at the other.

"Oh… Yeah, Nori. Just thinking." She smiled her usual faint aloof smile and hid her awkwardness.

"Thank you for going out with me today." Minori scooted a little closer until she sat hip to hip with the other. "It was fun."

"Yeah, it was." Nilak resisted the urge to edge away nervously but looked at the girl.

"I like you." The words tumbled out of the amber eyed girl in an embarrassed rush.

"I like you too, Nori. We've been friends since forever." The teen replied noncommittally.

"No, I mean… I really _like_ you." Minori emphasized the word and found it hard to keep eye contact.

"…I know." Nilak didn't see the point in denying it or demeaning the girl's feelings over her youth.

"I don't wanna ask you to date me 'cause I know you don't feel the same and you think I'm just a kid, but I just wanted you to know that." The firebender muttered shyly but then took a breath and sat straight and proud with her chest puffed out. "But someday I'll ask you out on a proper date again and I'll… I'll make you swoon."

"Oh really?" The teen chuckled at the determined but childish tone the other used.

"Yeah! Like in four or five years or something." Minori insisted stubbornly.

"Uh uh." Nilak just smiled and chose not to take it seriously.

"I mean it." The girl pouted when the other didn't seem to believe her.

"I'll be waiting then." The waterbender grinned.

Minori stared at her for long minute with a troubled expression and then she suddenly leaned forward and pressed her lips to Nilak's, the latter was so surprised that she didn't fight it. The kiss was soft, tender and tasted like honey and mint, their lips molded a little klutzily with berry lip shine and maroon lipstick smudging together and it only lasted a few heartbeats but when the younger one pulled away they were both red and looked at anything but each other.

Well, at least Nilak couldn't say the girl wasn't braver than her.

"So…" Minori trailed off awkwardly, rubbing her smudged lipstick off nervously with the tips of her fingers.

"Hm…" The teen didn't know what to say and rubbed the back of her head self-consciously.

Kinapak, who had settled on the sand at their feet, looked up and glanced at each of them curiously, yawning in boredom as the minutes ticked by and the sun kept dipping in the horizon. Eventually Minori started using the flowers and producing little flickers on flame between her fingers in order to entertain the bored animal and Nilak grasped at that to make conversation.

"That's pretty nifty." She commented with an admiring glance at the little sparks of dancing flame that the wolf-cat followed with its eyes when the plants became boring. She had always found fire beautiful and loved to watch her mother firebend even if water was what called to her.

"It's nothing. Just sparkles." Minori shrugged but smiled at the praise. "It's pretty though, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." Nilak smiled back and looked at the sea, with some concentration she tugged a streamer of water that swirled around the other playfully. "I can't do sparkles but this is nice too, right?"

"Yeah! And it does sparkle, see?" Minori shifted her head and watched the way the swirling liquid reflected golden rays of sunlight from every angle, then she glanced at Nilak not with the fear, jealousy or disgust she was used to from strangers but with awe. "How do you do that without moving?"

"It's just a quirk… Plus a lot of practice." The waterbender shrugged but the familiar little headache and the crackle in her ears that she was used to from using telekinetic waterbending was already creeping onto her and trying to disrupt her focus, it wouldn't work though, she had enough years of training to learn to ignore it.

Kinapak sat up and followed the path of the spiraling water with interest and then suddenly the wolfcat pounced and tried to catch the liquid to play, unlike the headache that did indeed manage to distract Nilak and the water splashed onto both girls. Minori blinked in surprise with her hair glued to her face and her clothes sticking to her body while the waterbender grimaced apologetically… And then they laughed.

They laughed so hard that Nilak's sides hurt, especially because Minori got up and started chasing Kinapak on the shoreline, trying to splash the wolf-cat with sea water as payback and managing only to trip and get her scrawny self to splatter into the foamy embrace of a breaking wave.

Minori got up sputtering and with seaweed in her hair as Nilak approached, still laughing raucously. The younger girl pouted and then pulled the teen into the cold water by her clothes too and the waterbender squeaked before she splashed, not unwillingly, into the salty sea.

They tossed water at each other and played until it started getting too dark and the moon rose above the last rays of purplish and orange light from the dying sunset, then they dragged themselves out and sat on the sand again, giggling like little children.

"Mom is gonna have a fit when she sees me." Minori looked down at her drenched and salt-stained clothes and grimaced.

"I'm sure aunt Asami has bigger things to worry about than salty clothes." Nilak giggled and she waterbent the liquid from her own clothes, not caring about the stains.

"You're right. She probably won't even notice." There was a little touch of bitterness that Nilak couldn't overlook but before she could ask about it Minori was pulling off her tunic and ringing it dry which became highly distracting.

The teen never expected the eleven year old to have breasts or curves yet but the sight of Minori's flat naked torso still took her by surprise because it was completely unfeminine, the scrawny physique was starting to take on lean muscle from firebending training and there was something about the shoulders and hips that just felt off…

"You're a boy…?" Nilak blurted abruptly more to herself than the other when the sudden assumption popped into her head. It couldn't be, it was crazy- Minori always dressed like a girl, talked like a girl, was referred to by everyone as a girl, heck, she even wore lipstick and liked jewelry!

"Huh?" The kid glanced at Nilak a little surprised and then the waterbender's stunned expression seem to hit the young one and Minori looked away with an awkward shrug, tugging off the silk scarf as well. "Well duh. Everybody knows that." The kid pointed at his throat where an adam's apple was just starting to protrude on the slender neck.

"I didn't know that!" Nilak was stunned, she always prized herself on being perceptive and smart so how come she hadn't notice the gender of one of her closest friends?

"Really?" Minori looked at her with a vaguely curious and somewhat flattered half-smile.

"Yes!" She was still trying to make sense of the situation. "Why does everyone treat you like a girl?"

"Because I want them to?" The kid sounded amused and a little sarcastic. "I like feeling like a girl- the clothes are cuter, makeup is pretty, girly things and hobbies and toys are more fun than rough and boring boy stuff and I just always felt like a girl even if I have...different parts. I always felt that way but people tend to make a fuss about it, people like my dad." Minori frowned slightly but spoke as if this had been explained a million times before. "So everyone just started treating me like a girl and that makes me happy. I mean, I don't mind if people know I'm boy and talk to me as a boy so long as they don't try to make me _act_ like one but I'm happier being a girl… And I know you like girls better too so win-win…"

Minori had started to ramble a little and fidgeted nervously as he wrung his tunic dry and slipped it back on before repeating the process on the scarf, never daring to look at Nilak because he was clearly scared of her reaction even though he had been flattered that she always saw him as female.

Nilak was watching him and trying to make sense of the situation, she was stressing out a little but it wasn't because she had misgendered a friend or because of the fact that Minori was a boy, it was because she had kissed a male and actually liked it no matter how short and silly it had been, no matter that there was no shred of romantic feeling behind it she still liked it and that was very new for her since girls were all she was ever attracted to all her life and that was something not likely to change. Suddenly she was very confused about herself.

"I'm sorry…" Minori whispered a little uncomfortably.

"Why are you apologizing?" Nilak felt a bit lost.

"I don't know. For freaking you out?" He grimaced.

"You don't freak me out, Nori." The waterbender smiled reassuringly but felt guilty. "I'm sorry for reacting like this, I just really thought you were a girl and this surprised me."

"Well, I am a girl. Maybe not all my parts are right and maybe I don't mind being a boy every once in a blue moon but I _am_ a girl, Nil." Minori insisted stubbornly and full of optimism.

"…" Nilak didn't really know how to reply or how to feel but she wrapped her arm around the kid's shoulders in a companionable one-armed hug. "Yeah, that you are. I don't know anyone girlier than you, that's for sure." Her tone was playful but it was actually true considering that the two women Nilak interacted with the most, her mother and best friend, were both complete tomboys.

"You think so?" Minori looked pleased and finally smiled honestly and haughtily again.

"I do." The waterbender kissed his cheek in a friendly way and decided then and there that she couldn't view this person as a boy even if she tried so to her Minori would always just be Minori. "Now let's get you home before uncle Mako gets mad at me for bringing you home after dark."

The kid smiled and nodded, Nilak allowed him to hold her hand all the way back to the Sato estate and during the one hour walk they talked about their friends and the baby that was about to join Nilak's family soon. She was interested to discover that apparently Rohan knew all about Minori's not-so-secret gender identity but nobody was sure if Biya knew or not because she was just that much of an airhead and what she said one day often changed the next.

Once Minori was safely at home with flowers in his arms and sand in his hair and delivered into Mako's hands, Nilak said goodbye and declined an invitation for dinner because her father was likely starting to stress out over having lost track of her. She left with Kinapak at her side and walked immersed in her own thoughts until she stumbled on Noatak on the docks where he was waiting to take her home, she smiled and assured him that she had had fun and in no time at all they were heading home and all the while the girl mused that her father was right when he had once said that life wasn't easy and that the world was a very complex place but that that was what made it beautiful and interesting.

~~~~~~.:oOo:.~~~~~~

_(Author's Note: And Minori is revealed! I know I'll probably get a lot of crap over this character from more conservative readers but I really wanted to explore that sort of side character without being overly dramatic about it. _

_I won't post the whole character info sheet but I want to give some details:_

_Let it be stated that although Minori usually identifies as female and prefers to live as female, he is not really trans but more like genderfluid/bigender. Think Kuranosuke from Kuragehime if you know that show. He is also attracted only to girls._

_Also, Minori was not a planned child, as stated in "Castaway" Asami never wanted to have children but when she found herself pregnant two years after Nilak's birth Mako managed to persuade her to have the baby and while both parents love Minori very much and Asami is fully acceptant of him and enables his preferences, she is also a bit of an absent parent considering the amount of work and responsibility on her plate; as for Mako he is a natural at parenthood after practically raising Bolin but has some issues about having a son that would rather be a girl. Minori's favorite relative is uncle Bo._

_Fun fact- My sister has cosplayed as Minori although of all my OC's her favorite is without a doubt Biya.)_


End file.
